The Cold Steel Mind

An Aneka Jansen Novel

By Niall Teasdale

Copyright 2013 Niall Teasdale

Amazon Kindle Edition

Contents

Part One: Ghost Ship

Part Two: Down The Rabbit Hole

Part Three: Wonderland

Part Four: The Art Of Diplomacy

Part Five: Quint

Part Six: The Future Ain’t What It Used To Be

Part One: Ghost Ship

FScV Garnet Hyde, in Orbit of Corax, Joval System, 3.8.524 FSC.

Aneka stood on the flight deck of the Garnet Hyde, looking out on the place where she had died. She was a little ambivalent about seeing the Agroa Gar again, her resting place for over a thousand years while the galaxy continued apace and she slept in nanostasis. The vessel was dead, a silent wreck, and no threat to anyone, but just looking at it brought memories to mind she would rather have stayed buried.

In a lab on the saucer-shaped vessel she had been, for want of a better term, dissected. Injected with drugs which inhibited shock and stopped her feeling pain, she had been fully aware as circular saws and other implements had opened her up for analysis by an alien race called the Xinti. Ultimately the Xinti scientists had somehow taken an image of her brain, her mind, and recreated it as software executing on a specialised, highly advanced computer system encapsulated within a robotic, near-perfect copy for her original body. Aneka Jansen had died and her ghost lived on in a robotic shell. The Xinti had done the same thing to themselves; they had probably thought they were doing her a favour.

‘Are you all right, Aneka?’ The voice was male and only she could hear it. Al was an artificial intelligence who resided on a second computer in her chest. He had been designed as her support system, an observer of her as she observed the Human race and reported back to her Xinti masters. As it turned out, she had been more in need of a support system than expected, and Al had done his level best to fulfil his role.

‘This isn’t going to be the easiest job,’ Aneka replied inside her head. Al could read her thoughts, in effect. He was connected directly into her mind, though she lacked the ability to perceive what he was thinking, only what he chose to project to her. ‘A lot of the procedure I went through over there is blanked out of my memory. What I do remember is… unpleasant. I’d rather it stayed as fragments, I think.’

‘While your long-term memory appears to act in the same way as Human memory, it is not quite the same. In particular, the actual storage medium is quite different. The holes which persist are the result of storage degradation, bit loss which my data recovery algorithms were unable to repair. It is highly unlikely that an external stimulus will manage to recover anything further.’

Well that was both good and bad. ‘So anything I still can’t remember I probably never will?’

‘For good or ill,’ Al agreed.

‘You okay, Aneka?’ This time the voice was outside her head. Shannon Patton was sitting at one of the two flight consoles, but had turned the chair to look at the robot girl standing just behind her. Shannon looked like some sort of space bimbo; not too tall with a cute face framed by bobbed, honey-blonde hair, her slim body was fit and came equipped with wide hips and an expansive bust. Pretty much all of her was on display since she was dressed in what was referred to as a shipsuit, a thin, semi-transparent, white bodysuit which clung to every curve. It looked like fetish-wear, but combine it with a helmet and gloves and it made a perfectly serviceable vacuum suit. Regulations stated that everyone wear one, except for Aneka.

‘I’m… basically fine.’

Shannon was not going to fall for that, and Aneka knew it. The pilot was a telepath, which was of little use on Aneka, who did not have an organic mind to read, but being able to tell what people were thinking, even when she did not want to know, had turned Shannon into a reasonably good psychologist. There were, frankly, far too many shrinks on the ship. Shannon’s eyes narrowed a little, but she clearly decided that pressing the matter was not her job. ‘Hard links are all in place. They’ll be ready to go aboard soon. You should get down to the airlock.’

Giving a nod and a grimace, mostly to indicate that she did recognise that she was not quite fine with it, Aneka turned to the door of the flight deck, hearing the latches disengage before it slid open. Even when manned, the room was sealed, secured against anyone trying to break in. Aneka considered that good practice. Outside she turned left and descended a ladder to the deck below and the forward airlock.

Ella was waiting for her. Ella Narrows was a pretty young woman. Pretty meant less now given that just about everyone was attractive and young-looking unless they chose to be ugly or old. Ella was in her seventies and looked no more than twenty, maybe a young thirty. She could expect to live for two or three centuries. She had moderately sized breasts on a slim frame, not overtly muscled, and while her body was largely on display thanks to her shipsuit, Ella rarely wore anything which was not at least partially transparent anyway. She was a redhead, a mass of red-orange hair hung to her shoulders, and possibly a closet nymphomaniac. She was also Aneka’s partner, a trained psychologist, and worried. When Ella smiled, it could light up the room, but she had a sad sort of face when she was being serious, and right now she looked serious.

‘You’re sure you’re all right about this?’ Ella asked. Ella, unlike Shannon, was speaking English. Her accent was a little odd, somewhere between the English accent Aneka spoke in and the Americanised sound that Ella spoke Federal in. Federal had derived from English by way of Mandarin and a couple of alien languages, and a lot of shifts in vowels and simplification of structure. Ella was trying to learn English mostly as an exercise and she was getting pretty good at it.

‘Everyone’s so concerned I’ll crack up as soon as I go over there,’ Aneka replied, walking past Ella into the airlock chamber.

Ella followed her in and hit a panel beside the hatch to cycle through the opening and closing of doors. There was no vacuum on the other side; using the lock was a safety precaution. ‘You’re forgetting, I’ve seen you crash from shock.’ It was true; when Ella had told her what she was she had been unable to handle it all and her executable had dropped into a diagnostic cycle to recover her mental state.

‘Al doesn’t think I’ll be able to recover any more memories, and I’ve been through some worse trials than this. What I don’t get is why I have to be first aboard.’ The outer door opened and Aneka stepped forward into the docking tube which led to the Agroa Gar Science Station.

The station had been custom-built to allow the Agroa Gar to be studied. The university had spared every expense they could in setting up the project, which was why the ‘custom-built science facility’ was basically a docking system between the Garnet Hyde and the Xinti ship. It was actually a pretty clever idea: the Garnet Hyde already had many of the facilities they needed, as well as being a familiar base of operations to the team working on the ship. The ‘station’ had been built to fill in the gaps with a couple of laboratories and a workshop, a power plant able to supply power to the Xinti ship if needed, and two docking limbs to connect the larger vessels. It also had a sufficiently powerful atmospheric processor that it could actually handle giving the derelict ship a breathable atmosphere.

Gravity was another matter, however, and Aneka and Ella were floating as soon as they stepped clear of the airlock. Rails down the side of the short, metal-walled tunnel allowed them to pull themselves into one of the three modules comprising the station. There was just a simple hatch at the far side of the tunnel, airtight but locked only by latches driven home via a vertical bar which Aneka worked to allow them through. That let them into an access tunnel with branches off it in various directions leading to the engineering room and the storage area. Outside this module there was also a zero-atmosphere cargo area, currently occupied by the four semi-autonomous drones the project had been supplied with.

‘It’s a formality really,’ Ella said as she pulled herself through into the station and dogged the hatch behind her. ‘It’s your ship, you should invite the team aboard. It would have been nice last time, but you were, y’know, in stasis.’

Aneka pulled herself down the access corridor to the next doorway. This one was far heavier, powered, and clearly more like an airlock hatch. The core section of the station, which held the labs and control room, had more than a basic alloy hull. There was a short delay after Aneka hit the button beside the hatch before they could hear various seals unlocking. ‘It’s not like I own the thing,’ Aneka said as she waited. ‘It’s not actually mine…’

The door unsealed and opened to reveal Doctor Gillian Gilroy floating on the other side.

‘Actually, it is and you do,’ she said, also in English. Gillian always looked a little like that aunt you had who looked really fantastic well into her middle age. She had let herself age a little so she looked older than Ella did, but she certainly did not look her age, which was over a century. She had a classical look to her, though, with short, brown hair she kept in ringlets, brown eyes, and features that would not have looked out of place on a Greek statue.

‘Sorry?’ Aneka asked, frowning at her.

‘The Agroa Gar is, technically, your ship,’ Gillian replied, smiling slightly. ‘You were the only living, sentient being aboard when she was found. Under Federal salvage statutes, that means that she belongs to you. The Administration enacted clauses allowing them to take temporary possession for study purposes, but when we’ve finished ownership reverts to you.’

Closing her eyes and squeezing the bridge of her nose, Aneka found herself not quite believing what she was hearing. ‘Wonderful. I own a Xinti wreck.’

‘You own the most important archaeological find of the century,’ Gillian corrected. ‘The most important one related to the Xinti anyway.’

‘There’s another kind?’

‘Of course.’ Aneka could hear the humour in Gillian’s voice. ‘You are the most important archaeological find related to Old Earth.’

By now they had reached the second bulkhead door on the opposite side of the control module. ‘Thanks for that, Doc,’ Aneka said as they waited for the doors to open. ‘That makes me feel really old.’

‘Only chronologically.’

‘Chronologically is all I have. It’s not like this body ages.’

‘Uh-huh,’ Ella agreed. ‘You’ll always be young, gorgeous, incredibly sexy…’

‘Down girl,’ Aneka replied, grinning at her. ‘We’re working, remember?’

Ella pouted for about a second before giving one of her bright smiles. She was right, of course; Aneka’s body had been a good one even before the Xinti had replaced it. She had been a soldier; her body had been the result of good genetics and better exercise. She was tall, tanned, and beautiful, with lots of long, firm muscle and a model’s face. Her eyes were a clear blue, her nose moderately long and straight, her lips were full and slightly pouting, her cheekbones high and wide, her cheeks hollow. She had previously had a cap of dirty-blonde hair, but that had been replaced with a white that was almost silver, and the remodelling had included a more expansive, firmer bust, perky, and slightly pointed. The Xinti had designed her to be an observer of Humans, and had got the idea of what Humanity’s ideal woman was from the Internet. That was likely why they had neglected to include pubic or underarm hair in the model. She had, at one point, decided she was lucky; her nipples stood out like thimbles when aroused and the lucky part was that this was not a permanent feature given the source material.

The doors opened onto another tube-like corridor. Branching off from this one were the atmospheric processor system, the workshop, and a sensor facility which was directed specifically at analysing whatever emissions came from the Agroa Gar. At the far end of the corridor were the remainder of the team who would be taking part in the initial survey.

Leo Bashford was a facilitator, which was the job title Aneka had. He was the senior facilitator on the team, an experienced naval technician who had left the Federal Navy to go private. He had a robust, muscled body and a handsome face with slightly slanted eyes. Humans tended to have an odd mix of features after a thousand years of intermixing races and modifying their genetics until they no longer called themselves ‘Human.’ They were the Jenlay, a name that had come into use after the war with the Xinti and before the foundation of the Lorenti Federation. Bashford was a fine example of a Jenlay male, including what Aneka considered an above average bulge in his shipsuit: above average for a Human, not a Jenlay. He was also bald, with the kind of skull that suited it; he had gorgeous bone structure.

Floating beside him, and apparently more comfortable doing so than he was in normal gravity, was Doctor Abraham Wallace. Around eight feet in height and thin to the point of absurdity, Wallace had been born on a low-gravity world and wore an exoskeleton suit to help him cope with the stress of moving under normal conditions. Always good humoured, he was an expert in more or less all of the physical sciences, and had an anachronistic love of physical media. His office at the University of New Earth was full of printouts and books where most people used tablets and larger computers. Aneka would have liked him just for that, but he had also had absolutely no qualms about her from before they had met. Jenlay, many of them anyway, had developed something of a prejudice against cybernetic organisms and robots as a result of the war with the Xinti and Aneka’s nature had been made a state secret because of that. Wallace could not have cared less; as far as he was concerned she was a woman stuck in a robotic body and he dealt with her as another sentient being rather than as a machine.

Right now he was smiling wolfishly at her. ‘My dear Miss Jansen, please don’t keep us waiting any longer. I’m anxious to discover what delights await us beyond the airlock.

‘It’s fully pressurised in there,’ Bashford added. ‘All the seals are holding. Hull integrity checks out.’ That was impressive. Aneka had been imprisoned on the ship after its fusion reactor had suffered a catastrophic failure which had ripped a hole in the hull. The patch over that hole was basically a heavy plastic sheet.

‘Let’s get on with this then,’ Aneka said, switching to Federal for their benefit and pushing past the men to the inner hatch of the second bridging tube. This one had a coded, electronic lock on it rather than a physical lever to move. There was some possibility that there could be something dangerous still in the Agroa Gar and this was the security system that was supposed to stop it getting out. Frankly the chance was so small as to be essentially nothing, but people were cautious around Xinti artefacts. Aneka punched in a four digit code and Al reported that her personal identification had been requested. Every Federal citizen had a tiny ident-chip implanted in them which responded to radio requests. Aneka’s built-in systems mimicked that protocol.

There was no actual airlock. Beyond the doors was a tube around ten metres in length with a seam halfway along its length. This was held together with explosive bolts, another safety measure. The Agroa Gar could be blown free of the station at any time from the station’s control room or the Garnet Hyde’s flight deck. It all seemed a little overdone to Aneka, considering that the vessel had been dead in space for over a thousand years. The far end of the tube was locked onto the hull of the Xinti ship, encircling the main airlock. The outer doors of that were open, and Wallace and Bashford had spent a few hours earlier that day disengaging the safety systems so that the inner doors would open without the outer doors closing. Aneka floated through and hit the door release, and then she was back in the main corridor of her ancient tomb.

‘Welcome to my resting place for most of the last twelve hundred years,’ she said. ‘I hope it’s going to be as interesting for you as you all seem to hope it will be.’

~~~

In truth, the ‘initial survey’ had been far less detailed than Wallace had wished for fairly practical reasons. There was almost no light on the derelict vessel and actually seeing what there was to see was far from easy, even in the bright torches Bash had handed out. The physical scientist had seen the state of the reactor room and the drive room visible through a damaged bulkhead and stated that the first order of business was getting light into the place. That was not actually happening, because Gillian was the archaeologist and she had stated flatly that the first thing that would be happening was a full lidar survey of the ship. After that he could have his lights.

And that was why there were just two people aboard the Agroa Gar right now: Aneka, and a new member of the team who had been brought in for two good reasons. Right now Delta Ling was demonstrating one of those reasons as she assisted Aneka in prying open one of the doors on the port side of the ship. Born on a world with one-point-six times the standard gravity, Delta was tall and built like an Amazon. Aneka had been told that high gravity tended to reduce height so how tall the girl would have been if born on New Earth was anyone’s guess. Her muscles were not extreme exactly, but she was certainly built more on the lines of an Olympic weightlifter than a supermodel. Counterpointing a body of the ‘cracks walnuts with her buttocks’ type, her face was pretty to the point of cute, and kind of young. Delta was the first person Aneka had met since waking up who was actually her age; Aneka had been twenty-nine when she was kidnapped, Delta was thirty-one. She seemed a bit shy, and certainly could have made more of her looks. Her hair was a slightly messy cap of red-brown and back on New Earth she had been dressed in rather frumpy exercise clothing whenever Aneka had seen her.

Right now she had the shipsuit working for her. Her muscles bulged under the semi-transparent Ultraskin as she worked on the door. The lightweight helmet she was wearing to protect against dust and other contaminants obscured much of her face, however. Aneka imagined that Monkey, the remaining facilitator on the team, was wishing he was there to watch. Aneka was dressed in her usual leotard, leggings, and boots, having no need for the suit or mask, and her muscles were also rippling as she pulled on a pry bar. Monkey found Aneka attractive and would have slept with her except that his father had told him stories for years about Xinti combat machines. Delta, on the other hand, was a strong, attractive woman, and Monkey was in love. Unfortunately for him, she appeared not to have noticed and he was far too shy of women he liked to say anything.

This was despite the fact that they were sharing a cabin! There had been some rearrangement of accommodation on the Garnet Hyde since Aneka’s last trip aboard her. Wallace had been moved into what had been Gillian’s cabin. It was not a question of seniority or anything; Gillian had moved in with Bashford. They had not made their relationship even vaguely official, and Aneka got the impression this was more of a renewal of a former state than a new thing, but they had decided not to bother hiding the fact that they were more than just colleagues. Wallace’s assistant, Cassandra, had moved into Shannon’s cabin since the telepath was usually in Drake’s. Shannon had her own room as far from the others as possible because she sometimes needed to be alone with her own thoughts. Having Cassandra in the room with her was not an issue, however, since Cassandra was a sentient android and Shannon could no more read her than she could Aneka. Aneka and Ella were in the same place they had always been in, which practically meant that the upper bunk in their room never got used.

‘It’s giving,’ Delta grunted, and then she was flying backwards as the door did, indeed, break free. Neither she nor Aneka actually went far; the ship was in zero gravity, and the only thing keeping them anchored to the deck was the setae strip on the soles of their boots. Delta’s thigh muscles bunched as she did her best to control her momentum.

‘It gave,’ Aneka agreed. ‘That’s the last one, isn’t it?’

Delta was shifting her weight to push the door open the rest of the way. Reactive controls released the nanofibre bonds on her boots, letting her move to a new position where she pressed back down to re-engage the ‘molecular glue,’ and then applied herself to sliding the door open the rest of the way. ‘Yeah, I think so. We’ve opened…’ She stopped to let out a grunt of effort as the door stuck, ‘…every door and panel we could find.’

Aneka looked past her, into the room. Several pairs of articulated arms hung limply from the ceiling, each ending in a set of heavy, padded manacles. Below each limb was a similar one sprouting from and lying on the floor. A flicker of memory, of being held in those cuffs, naked, vulnerable, and waiting to be taken for examination, passed through her mind.

‘You really spent a thousand plus years in this place?’ Delta asked.

‘I was unconscious for pretty much all of it. In a big tube on the other side of the ship.’

The light shifted as Delta moved her head. ‘Let’s get out of here. This ship gives me the creeps. I’m amazed you aren’t freaking out. Though, I guess you’re not… uh… Well, you wouldn’t… uh…’

‘I’m quite capable of freaking out, Delta. My mind’s no different than it was. Which is the point. I was trained not to get scared in tense environments.’

Delta gave her an embarrassed grin. ‘I’ll get used to, well, you eventually.’

‘Everyone else we’ve told has.’ Aneka was pretty sure that it was not prejudice that was giving Delta problems. The other reason she was on the team was that she was a robotics technician. No, Delta’s problem was that she just could not get the hang of a robot who had once been a living woman. She could handle people, and robots, but not both in the same package. She was still not quite sure which to treat Aneka as.

Unlocking their boots they headed for the airlock. ‘I think,’ Delta said as they went, ‘I think I’d have gone fafung if someone had done to me what they did to you.’

‘Fafung?’

‘Sorry, it’s Rimmic. Mad, nuts, insane.’

‘Ah… Maybe. I’m not sure why I didn’t.’ Aneka grinned. ‘Ella keeps coming out with random Rimmic words. They always sound a little like Chinese.’

‘I wouldn’t know. I’m not fully fluent in it. A lot of the immigrants to Drahain spoke it so it paid to learn.’

‘Drahain? Your home world?’

‘High Drahain, technically. It’s a core world, but there’s a lot of mining, so a lot of immigrant miners. The natives don’t like it, but they’d rather not get their hands dirty so they have to live with it.’

‘Immigrant workers and robots?’

‘Huh? Oh, my skill set? Mostly I worked on powered exoskeletons. They’re essentially mindless robots. The basic mechanics and the skills required for full robots are the same.’

‘Fair enough.’ Silently Aneka patched her internal comms through to the station. ‘Jansen to Bashford. We’re done and heading back, Bash. You can start the scans any time.’

Bashford’s voice sounded in her head a second later. ‘Monkey and I will have the drones ready when you get to the door.’

‘Should we radio ahead?’ Delta asked. ‘Doctor Wallace seemed anxious to get things moving.’

Aneka grinned. ‘I just did.’

There was a nervous giggle. ‘Right. Internal radio. That’s something else I’ll have to get used to.’

Four small robots, each powered along by four ducted turbofans, swept out past the two women as the airlock door opened. One took up station near the door while the others carried on into the ship. On the other side of the door was Monkey, looking slightly uncomfortable.

He was good-looking, like everyone was, with a smoothly muscled, if slim, body. He took after his father, a Captain in the Navy, in most ways, except for build; Ape Gibbons was a huge man. To differentiate himself, David, who everyone called Monkey, had an unruly mop of black hair which threatened to cover his eyes, and an attempt at a goatee beard. Ape shaved his head as well as his chin. Monkey’s mother had apparently provided his size: she was Gillian Gilroy.

‘Come on through,’ Monkey said. ‘Bash’s waiting in the control room to start the scan.’

Delta pushed ahead, past Monkey, and Aneka noted the slight flush around her cheeks as she passed. Sooner or later the two of them were bound to notice they were attracted to each other.

‘Surely the bulge in his shipsuit should be a giveaway,’ Al commented.

Aneka had learned not to laugh aloud when her AI made comments like that. She just said, ‘Shut up, you,’ inside her mind and followed Delta through into the station. Her skin sensors noted the flicker of an imaging lidar beam that hit her just before the door closed; Bashford had kicked off the scan.

‘Bash says you two are off duty until we start rigging the lights,’ Monkey added. ‘Ella said she’d see you in your cabin, Aneka.’

Which meant the redhead was horny. ‘Thanks, Monkey,’ Aneka replied and started off through the station. Monkey followed them, but peeled off at the control room leaving the two women to carry on through to the Garnet Hyde.

‘I wish these suits weren’t so…’ Delta began, pausing to consider what she disliked about them.

‘Translucent? Figure-hugging?’ Aneka supplied.

‘Yeah.’

‘Well, they wouldn’t provide the pressure support needed without the latter and I’m told the transparency is to allow medical sensors to work through them.’

‘I know. I know why they’re made this way. I just wish they didn’t need to be.’

It was kind of rare to find a Jenlay who was… prudish. ‘You could probably wear something over it.’

Delta grimaced. ‘I’m trying to fit in. You’re not even from this time and that suit of yours is mostly transparent and skimpy.’ It was, that was true; the Ultraskin suit was bi-toned, black and steel-grey, and variously translucent. The hips were cut high and it was sleeveless, but the fact was that you could see pretty much everything under it anyway.

Aneka gave a short laugh. ‘Yeah, well… I was trying to fit in too. You’ll get used to it.’ She settled onto the floor of the Hyde’s airlock as the gravity field asserted itself. It was something of a relief; she functioned fine in zero G, but she was not really used to it yet.

‘Like everything else,’ Delta replied. The inner airlock door opened and she set off into the ship. ‘I’ll see you later.’

‘Uh-huh,’ Aneka replied. ‘Light rigging. Should be enormous fun.’

~~~

‘What do you know about High Drahain?’ Aneka asked. Ella gave a whimper in response; Aneka’s fingers were teasing her clitoris with an expertise born of much practice. Smirking, she added, ‘Come on, High Drahain, what do you know?’

‘Oh… It’s… It’s an old c-colony. Founded by… oh Vashma… Founded by a religious group… originally. Anthrop… shin chou, don’t stop! Anthropologically interesting. Stratified society. Tends to nggg… tends towards a view that women… women should be home-makers.’

‘That explains Delta, and doesn’t.’

‘D-Delta’s young… ohhh… Probably rebelled against… Please, Aneka, stop teasing.’

‘I like it when you squirm.’

‘Please…’

Relenting, Aneka picked up the pace and it took only a few seconds before the little redhead was thrashing against her. ‘For a woman who could probably crush a man’s head between her thighs, she’s painfully insecure,’ Aneka said as the wriggling subsided.

‘Jenlay on Drahain don’t wear the revealing clothes you see in a lot of the core.’ Ella’s voice was breathy, but not exhausted; that meant she would want to go again soon. ‘There’s far less recreational sex. It’s not entirely impossible that she’s a virgin. A lot of the Drainies still consider intercourse as a means for reproduction and nothing else. You do it as part of a legal partnership and not otherwise.’

Marriage had fallen by the wayside in the last thousand years; people lived too long to make it really workable. There were legal statutes which could be invoked to govern joint property and the like, but actual marriage and the baggage that went with it was gone. It was interesting to discover some parts of society still viewed it in a more old-fashioned manner.

‘If she was being rebellious, I’d be surprised if she hasn’t dabbled,’ Aneka commented.

‘Assuming she could find someone to dabble her.’

Aneka giggled at the turn of phrase. ‘There’s always someone around who’ll dabble a willing young woman.’

‘Yeah, but they can be hard to find. I had to hide in a dark cupboard to get someone to dabble me.’

Not particularly wanting to be reminded of Ella’s first experience of sex, Aneka set her fingers to work again. Ella let out a moan and Aneka said, ‘Not any more you don’t.’

4.8.524 FSC.

The facilitators were busy laying cables and placing lights. The cables passed through the old reactor room and then through the hull patch, just as the conduits pumping air into the ship did. The bio-plastic sheet they had used to seal the hull was quite amazing stuff; bio-plastic was the kind of stuff Aneka considered science-fiction-made-real in fact. It did everything these days, including providing the material for their suits, in different forms. Tough, flexible where needed and hard where needed, self-repairing, it was the universal material of the future. The only thing which was as much use was setae strip, which could bond just about anything to just about anything in a reversible way. Setae strip was what was fixing the cables and lights to the walls and ceilings. The cables were super-conductive bio-plastic, Transdux, sheathed in insulating Plastex.

Aneka and Delta were working their way down one side of the ship, the port side, while Monkey and Bashford did the other side. That arrangement kept Aneka away from the room she had spent her thousand-year sleep in, and the lab she had been dissected in. Ella was working with the two women. That side of the ship had not been part of the minimal survey the Garnet Hyde’s crew had done after finding Aneka. Delta had been happy to go along with the plan since it meant she was not working with either of the men. She was not entirely comfortable around half-naked women, but even less so around similarly dressed men.

‘This must have been the medical bay,’ Ella said from one of the doorways at the side of the broad, orbital corridor. They had put a light in there about ten minutes earlier and Ella had started doing a quick inventory of the contents soon after. ‘There are drug bottles, various devices which look like they had a medical function. They might have done some biological research in there…’

‘No, I think they kept that to the lab on the other side,’ Aneka stated. ‘I’ve no memory of being in there. I can remember the cell block about two doors ahead, but not that room.’

Ella moved past the two facilitators and shone a torch into the room with the restraints. ‘You’ve never really said much about what you remember from the ship.’ Her voice sounded distant. She could obviously imagine Aneka fixed in the manacles, terrified and helpless.

‘Enough,’ Aneka replied. ‘It’s not much. Fragments. I think they kept us drugged most of the time. I woke up in that room once and they tried to feed me some sort of paste. I screamed a lot of obscenities at them. After that I just remember the lab and the cutting.’

Delta shuddered. ‘It must have been…’

‘The most terrifying experience of my life. That’s another reason a slightly spooky old ship doesn’t really bother me. I’ve been through Hell. This is a cake walk.’ She looked around at the still shadowed portions of the corridor. ‘Maybe if there were more creaking, some shuffling sounds from the corners, strange clicking noises… An ominous soundtrack would be good.’

‘Why would you want an ominous soundtrack?’ Ella asked.

‘It’s very horror movie. You can always tell when the monster is about to leap out and eat someone because the soundtrack goes ominous.’

‘Oh. I don’t really watch that kind of movie much.’

‘I know. Inane sex comedies are your thing.’

‘They’re not inane!’ Ella squeaked, thoughts of monsters crawling out of the air vents instantly replaced. ‘They’re…’

‘Puerile?’ Delta suggested.

‘You don’t like them either?’ Aneka asked, brightening a little.

‘They’re okay, once in a while, when there’s nothing better on and I’m feeling, uh, well… you know.’

Aneka gave a slight shrug. ‘I don’t get to feel like that long enough to watch a film. Ella’s a redhead.’

‘What’s her hair colour got to do with anything?’ There was a hint of embarrassment about the question; well Delta’s hair was, perhaps, more red than brown.

Aneka smiled. ‘You can sleep with a brunette, you might get to sleep with a blonde, but a redhead’ll keep you up all night.’ Both Delta and Ella went red, Delta went almost scarlet.

‘I don’t think I’m a proper redhead then.’

Ella, apparently, decided that Delta was not to be allowed off the hook. ‘I bet you are. You just need the right guy to get you going. Or maybe the right girls…’ Delta’s blush extended down her throat and Ella giggled. ‘She’s awfully easy to tease. This could be fun. We need to go down to Corax sometime, just the girls. We can go to Feathers, and get drunk and inappropriate.’

Corax was the moon they were in orbit around, though ‘moon’ was doing it a disservice. Aneka was unsure what ‘Feathers’ was, but guessed it was some sort of club. ‘If we’re going out for a drink,’ Aneka countered, ‘I’d rather we did something that lasts longer than the time it takes for you to get drunk and start stripping, love.’

Ella pouted; she had terrible alcohol tolerance, and she knew it, but that did not mean Aneka had to point it out. ‘I’m not that bad. And there would be men there and I’m not going to get naked around men right now. They’d get the right idea.’

‘You mean the wrong idea,’ Delta said.

‘No, the right one, usually. There was a bit of an… incident a few months ago and I’m kind of off men. I’ve got this plan to get over it, but then this project came up and there was all the planning…’ The incident had been their kidnapping by a slightly deranged terrorist and Ella’s rape in the name of progressing the Human race. The story had made the news networks pretty heavily. The Humanity First organisation running a breeding farm and terrorist training camp was big news. However, the names of the women involved had been kept secret and the official story was that a team of marines had stormed the private island. No mention had been made of the fact that, by the time the marines had arrived, Aneka had killed almost every male on the island.

Aneka activated the light she had just attached to the ceiling and there was a little less darkness. ‘We’re getting there. Another… ten lights? And the last couple of rooms.’

Delta looked down the corridor towards the bow of the ship. ‘Sounds right. Then there’s the flight deck to rig. Bash and Monkey got it worst; they got most of the engineering section.’

‘Huh, good point. There’s the sensor suite down that side, and the stealth and electronic warfare sections. Doc Wallace is going to want all that well lit.’

‘We’re going to be at this for the rest of the day.’

‘At least we’re busy,’ Ella pointed out. ‘And when we’re finished we’ll be in the mood to relax and get busy.’

‘Redheads,’ Aneka said, shaking her head.

Wisely, Delta said nothing at all.

~~~

‘As your initial survey suggested,’ Wallace began, ‘the breach made a near total mess of the reactor itself.’ He was sitting in the motorised wheelchair he was using a lot aboard the Hyde, his eyes on the wall at the back of the mess hall-cum-conference room where the lidar-mapped schematic of the reactor room was being displayed. ‘The failure was catastrophic. In fact, it was almost too catastrophic. I need to do further analysis, but it appears that there were multiple plasma releases from the core.’

‘That shouldn’t happen,’ Drake commented. ‘I’m no engineer, but no breach of that type I’ve ever heard of had multiple points of failure.’

Wallace nodded. ‘Technically it’s possible, but practically a point of weakness in the containment field develops, a hotspot is formed, the plasma burns out through that weak point, and the pressure is let off in other areas. One entire side of this reactor has been split open.’

Aneka was seeing what Wallace was seeing now as she got used to viewing the rotating, line-art image. ‘That looks less like a breach and more like an explosion.’

‘Yes,’ Wallace agreed, ‘though I did say more analysis was needed. I’d like some ultra-high-def scans made of the reactor itself when we’re done checking over the room.’

‘That shouldn’t take long,’ Gillian commented. ‘The room itself was trashed and then exposed to hard vacuum for over a millennium. There’s little there to examine.’

‘Quite. Computer, display the sub-light drive room.’ The image changed to show another room containing another, vaguely spherical machine which, again, looked badly damaged. ‘Unfortunately, this drive was hit by the plasma backwash fairly badly. I doubt there’s much salvageable, and there may be very little we can learn from it.’

‘That looks like it exploded as well,’ Aneka commented.

‘It possibly did. You may have noticed that the vessel has no obvious exhaust port exterior to the hull? Xinti vessels frequently used some form of reactionless drive technology. We’ve never got to the bottom of how they worked, but we suspect some form of exotic matter. It’s possible that containment of that matter failed when the reactor exploded. We don’t know. A chemical analysis of the materials in the room may give us more information. Can we have the warp drive chamber, please?’

The next display looked like it was going to be more promising. The warp drive itself, a cylindrical device occupying much of the room, seemed intact. Wallace sounded a lot more enthusiastic when he spoke. ‘This is more like it. The warp drive is intact, the room itself undamaged. We’ve never had what could be a functional Xinti warp drive to study, at least not since the one which came down on Old Earth all those years ago. In Aneka’s time, in fact.’

‘A little after my time,’ Aneka replied.

Wallace acknowledged the correction with a slight shrug. ‘So, the plan is for Bash to assist Cassandra and myself in going over the damaged rooms and then move on to the undamaged drive. While that is happening, Monkey and Delta will be rigging additional power lines into the ship so that we can get power to the sensor systems and computer.’

‘I’m quite keen to get the computer’s storage systems online,’ Gillian put in. ‘There could be a lot of very interesting information in there.’

‘Powering up the computer?’ Aneka said. ‘Isn’t that… risky?’

‘It probably won’t be functional,’ Wallace replied. ‘It may take a lot of effort to reconstruct its memory once we have it powered up and I doubt the actual operating software is complete enough to function. Even if it is, there’s little it can do. The ship has no weapons. Its sub-light drive is destroyed and while the warp drive is largely intact, there is significant damage to the power conduits leading into it.’

‘Okay,’ Aneka said, though she could not help thinking it was still a bad idea. ‘What am I doing?’

‘You’ll be shadowing me and Ella,’ Gillian replied. ‘We’ll be going through the other rooms checking for anything useful. That medical bay you found is a priority. We want to gather up any chemicals, drugs, whatever, for analysis back at the university.’

‘And we’ll be keeping an eye on you all from the station,’ Drake said. ‘Not as interesting as our usual tasks, but more relaxing.’

‘Hopefully more relaxing than Alpha Mensae,’ Shannon said. ‘We’re quite sure there aren’t any hidden Xinti robots aboard that thing?’

‘No,’ Gillian said, ‘which is why Aneka is going to be packing her… Bessie is it?’

Aneka grinned. She had named the handgun the Xinti had provided her with ‘Bessie.’ ‘Yeah, Bessie will be along to introduce herself if something nasty crawls out of a corner. Let’s hope not because she’s about as subtle as an anti-tank rocket.’

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‘That’s Bessie?’ Delta asked, nodding at the pistol strapped to Aneka’s right thigh. It was big, chunky, with an over-sized barrel wrapped in a very solid shell.

‘That’s her,’ Aneka replied, patting the gun’s butt where the power cell was. ‘A Xinti anti-matter blaster. Basically she launches a few anti-protons down a channel evacuated by a laser. It causes a small nuclear explosion at the point it hits. Like I said, not subtle.’

‘Uh, no.’ Delta came to a stop beside the hatch leading to the machine shop in the station. ‘Well, wish me luck. A day of working with Monkey laying power cables.’

Aneka smiled and pushed off towards the bridge to the Agroa Gar. ‘You’ll be fine. Monkey’s a great guy once you get to know him.’ She got only a grunt and the sound of the hatch being opened in reply.

Gillian and Ella were waiting outside the engineering rooms. Beyond them, Aneka could see Wallace and Bashford hard at work removing the outer shielding of the warp drive while Cassandra apparently just watched. In practice she was recording the process, her eyes being a perfectly good, stereoscopic video camera. Aneka would be doing the same thing for Gillian and Ella with the added benefit that she could record in a far wider frequency range.

‘Delta all ready to spend the day with Monkey?’ Ella asked as Aneka approached.

‘What possessed you to put our two shy people in a room together, Gillian?’ Aneka asked in reply.

‘There was only one cabin left.’ Gillian gave a slight shrug. ‘He likes her. He’s gone all quiet around her.’

Aneka grinned. ‘I recognise the symptoms. Shall we proceed?’

‘By all means. Lead the way, Facilitator First Rank Jansen.’

Aneka pushed back the way she had come, towards the port side rooms which had not been surveyed when the ship had been initially discovered. ‘I love it when you go all formal, Doctor Gilroy. Next thing you know we’ll be spanking Ella.’

‘Work first, play later.’

There were two of the cells, or containment rooms, or whatever you called a chamber designed to hold experimental subjects between examinations. The one towards the rear of the ship appeared to have been designed more for animals. Rather than the robot arms, half the room was sealed behind a transparent, but extremely tough, shield wall which looked like it had been designed to slide apart.

‘It’s a bio-plastic,’ Ella said, her eyes on a scanner she was holding, a chem-sniffer. ‘Or it was. It’s dead now. There’s no evidence of biological activity.’

‘We should get a sample of it,’ Gillian replied. ‘It can be checked in the materials science lab, though I doubt it’s any different from the plastics they normally used.’ She glanced around at Aneka, who was busy removing a cutting tool from her belt. ‘Do you remember this room?’

‘No, they held me in the one nearer the bow.’ Rather than use a plasma torch on plastic, Aneka took a sonic knife to the screen. There was nothing actually sonic about it, but the blade’s extremely rapid vibration produced a high-pitched whine which had given it the name. It made short work of the degraded material. ‘Well,’ she added as the blade went to work, ‘if they did put me in here at any time I don’t remember it.’

‘You were their star subject,’ Ella pointed out. ‘Maybe they treated you to special accommodation.’

‘Huh, right.’ A section of the screen came free and she looked at it, turning it in her hand so that she could record a full-spectrum view of the material. It had an odd, semi-crystalline quality to it; the light falling on the cut edge refracted to give a shimmer of multiple colours. ‘There’s some sample bags in my backpack. Could you get one, Ella?’ She was wearing a short, Plastex jacket which had a hard-shell pack mounted on the back. Ella popped it open and retrieved one of the bags, and placed the bagged sample back in the pack.

‘There’s nothing much to see here,’ Gillian said. ‘We may as well move on.’

The next room along that side was, apparently, a cabin. The Xinti had given up on their original bodies, but they still had need of a physical form, and this was where they had spent their off-hours. From the look of the room they had not really had much in the way of time off. There were two double bunks, roughly Human sized though they would have been a little short for Aneka, and very little else. There seemed to be no entertainment systems, or even computers. There was one chair set in front of a small, bare table. No photographs, nothing personal. To Aneka it looked as though the race had given up on the physical world as an expression of their personality.

‘It’s so… impersonal,’ she commented as she allowed her eyes to take in the environment.

‘We believe that they spent much of their time in what amounts to computer servers,’ Gillian said. ‘They employed bodies when they needed to, but when they didn’t need them they would live in a virtual environment.’

‘It’s probable that their rather amoral experiments were the result,’ Ella went on. ‘They didn’t see physical bodies as important, so experimenting on living things was just something they did to further their research.’

As one of their experimental subjects Aneka had a few choice words concerning that, but she chose to say nothing. Instead she said, ‘No computers or entertainment systems because they could connect to the ship’s network any time they wished.’

Gillian gave a nod. ‘Even their organic bodies had an electronic brain similar to the one you reside in. The ones we’ve examined had networking systems with the bandwidth for full-sensorium transmission.’

‘As do we,’ Al put in.

‘Huh,’ Aneka responded silently. ‘You’ve been quiet.’

‘I had nothing to say. However, I have not, as a matter of fact. I have been employing our high-bandwidth networking to talk to Cassandra.’

‘We believe,’ Gillian went on, unaware of Aneka’s internal conversation, ‘that they used physical connections in situations where higher bandwidths were required, such as on the flight deck.’

‘Because wireless networks suffer from frequency conflicts more than a hard connection,’ Aneka said. She was still a little surprised at the speed her new brain could process information. Having two conversations at once was easy now.

‘Doctor Wallace is drooling over the warp core,’ Al said. ‘It seems to be entirely intact and of a far more advanced design than anything any of the current races have.’

‘That’s right, Aneka,’ Gillian said, sounding a little surprised. ‘You’ve grasped the concepts of our networking technologies?’

‘Basic computer networking infrastructure was part of my facilitator training.’ Something about what Al had said was nagging at Aneka and she could not quite put her finger on it. ‘Well,’ she said to Al, ‘don’t distract Cassandra, if that’s possible. Otherwise, enjoy your chat.’

‘Cassandra is as capable of multi-tasking as you are.’

‘Of course she is.’ Aloud she added, ‘Anything you want for the labs, or shall we go on?’

They moved on to the medical bay. Aneka slipped her jacket off, popped open her backpack, and the mundane, but important, process of recording and packing dozens of bottles and other containers began. None of them looked like the contents had survived the long wait in the vacuum, but there was possibly residue to analyse and Gillian was determined that they should miss absolutely nothing.

There were a number of instruments to be catalogued as well: injectors, scanners, various things which appeared to be for parting something to allow someone to look inside, as well as more mundane devices like tweezers. The clever, high-tech, bit of mundaneness was the tube-shaped device that Ella stated was a laser scalpel. Aside from that there was a medical bench with an array of manipulator arms around it. It all looked incredibly complex.

‘If the Xinti didn’t think much about bodies, why all the medical paraphernalia?’ Aneka asked.

‘I doubt they could replace them outside one of their stations or worlds,’ Gillian replied. ‘If they died out here, they were dead.’

‘Couldn’t they just… restore a backup?’

Gillian had obviously considered this. ‘Unless they had some form of moral qualm about that, yes. However, all the experience they had gained on the mission would be lost. Hence good medical facilities.’

‘I think Doctor Wallace is going to want to see this table,’ Ella said. ‘I think this is like the scrapped field medic robots we’ve found on old battlefields, but this is intact.’ She glanced back at Aneka. ‘They could perform even very delicate operations in battlefield conditions. They used nanofibre probes to get into the body without causing excessive tissue damage.’

‘They really had technology far in advance of what you have even now, didn’t they?’

‘Some of what they could do was… magic to us.’

‘None of this is magic,’ Aneka said, ‘just really, really advanced.’

‘I think Doctor Wallace might disagree when he works out what that warp core can do,’ Al said.

~~~

‘It’s not possible,’ Wallace said as they sat around eating their evening meal. ‘That drive is not possible.’

‘Told you so.’ Al sounded a little smug.

‘What’s the problem, Abraham?’ Gillian asked. She was grinning; her friend’s perplexity amused her.

‘It’s a binary core,’ Wallace explained. ‘All our warp engines have a single core.’ He glanced at Aneka and apparently felt that a more basic explanation was required; he was not entirely wrong. ‘The warp core produces a, well, a warping of space-time. Essentially it foreshortens space in front of the ship and extends it behind. This allows the vessel to exceed the speed of light while not actually breaking the rule that nothing can travel faster than light. Even our largest engines have a single core system, generating a single warp field, and this limits the efficiency of the drive.’

‘Okay,’ Aneka said, since he had directed most of the last part at her. ‘This one has two cores which somehow makes it more efficient.’

‘Exactly. One generator pulls, the other pushes, if you will. Actually, from the power feeds it’s not really more efficient, but the resulting drive is half the size of an equivalent one of ours. More bang for the tonnage. But the mathematics simply does not exist to handle synchronising the two fields. Get that wrong and you end up with the two halves of your ship a few parsecs apart.’

‘Something to be avoided then?’

Wallace looked at her, blinking, and then burst out laughing. ‘Thank you for putting my problems into perspective, Aneka. We have managed without such drives for the last thousand years or so, and the search for the principles behind this one could keep the next generation busy.’

Aneka frowned, the thought which had surfaced and then hid earlier finally sneaking out from wherever it had concealed itself. ‘Yeah, a thousand years… Stop me when I get something wrong. A few years after I was taken a Xinti ship crash lands on Old Earth. The Humans of that time were able to salvage enough of the warp drive to understand how it worked and build their own.’

‘The mathematics behind a normal warp engine are complex,’ Wallace said, ‘even what one might describe as “esoteric,” but there is nothing that could not have been understood in your time given what I know of the technology.’ He looked at Gillian for confirmation.

‘Agreed. We even have a few examples of scientific papers written back then, and we know of a couple of scientists during that period who worked in this kind of area. Laplace, Einstein, Chandrasekhar, Rosen, Hawking… Though the latter may have been an early android.’ Aneka giggled and Gillian winced. ‘That’s not right, I take it?’

‘Stephen Hawking had a degenerative nerve disease and a brilliant mind. When his speech decayed to the point where he was indecipherable, someone built a computer with a voice synthesiser in it. He was a genius, but he was also something of an icon, like Einstein was before him, I guess. Except Einstein never got to guest star on Star Trek or The Simpsons.’

‘I have a T-shirt with Einstein on it,’ Wallace commented.

‘As do I,’ Cassandra added. ‘Doctor Wallace bought it for me. It is considerably shorter than his, however.’

Wallace coughed. ‘Do go on, Aneka.’

‘Right… So this ship that crashed on Old Earth was, what? Would you say it was a first-generation warp ship?’

‘I suppose we’ll need to start calling them something like that, yes.’

‘And it crashed after I was taken off Earth by something with a second-generation engine?’

‘Apparently, yes.’

‘Oh,’ Gillian said, getting it a fraction of a second before the others.

‘Yeah,’ Aneka said, filling in the silence. ‘So if the Xinti had been using these second-generation drives to get to Earth, why did a first-generation one crash?’ No one seemed willing to answer so Aneka said it. ‘Because we would never have understood one of their current model engines.’

‘The Herosians got warp technology from a crashed ship,’ Ella commented. ‘Since the structure is almost identical to ours we’ve always assumed that was Xinti.’

‘Are we saying,’ Drake said into the next silence, ‘that the Xinti crashed those ships on purpose? They gave warp engines to the Herosians and the Jenlay, well, the Humans back then?’

‘There was nothing in the historical databases the Xinti robots gave us,’ Gillian said, but she was not sounding convinced.

‘Well, I’m saying it,’ Aneka stated flatly. ‘It makes sense of me. Part of an observation project leading to pushing the new race out into space.’

‘But you never arrived and they went ahead anyway.’

‘Yeah, that really worked out for them, didn’t it?’

7.8.524 FSC.

Aneka pushed her way through from the Agroa Gar side of the station into the central core and was a little surprised to see Delta hanging around in the corridor. Everyone else was back in the Hyde getting ready for the evening meal and there she was, holding back for some reason.

‘Hey, Delta, something up?’

The girl started, not an easy feat in zero gravity. ‘Oh, Aneka… No, nothing, I was just… I stayed back to check…’ Her face scrunched up into a grimace. ‘No, that was just an excuse. Look, I think I’m going to ask to be let out of my contract.’

Blinking, Aneka pulled herself closer and looked the auburn-haired girl in her green eyes. ‘Why?’

‘Well, I feel like kind of a fifth wheel here. Both Bash and Monkey have more experience than I do. You’re stronger. I was brought on for my muscles…’

‘And your robotics skills.’

‘Haven’t even used those. And… I don’t think Monkey likes me.’

Monkey liked her. Monkey thought she was so hot he would melt. Apparently everyone knew this except for Delta. ‘Why would you think that? Has he said something?’

‘No! Exactly the opposite. He hardly ever talks to me when we’re alone aside from, “Could you pass the wire cutters?” I see him looking at me sometimes and he always looks away quickly. My dad always got red around the face when he was angry and that’s the way Monkey looks when I catch him watching me…’

Aneka reached out and put a hand on Delta’s arm. ‘My God, girl, stop. Drahain really screwed your perceptions of males, didn’t it?’

‘I… What?’

‘Okay, first of all, Monkey gets really shy around women he finds attractive. He was the same with me when he first met me, and that was knowing I wasn’t even a Jenlay.’

‘He… does?’

‘And men who get caught looking at women tend to blush. It’s generally because they’re imagining one or more sexual positions, maybe something more exotic involving honey and a lot of licking.’

Delta was pretty when she blushed. ‘I’d imagine that she is now imagining something coated in honey,’ Al commented. Aneka tried not to laugh.

‘What I’d suggest,’ Aneka said, ‘is that you put some sexy clothes on after dinner and let him know you’re interested. You are interested, right? You’ve looked like you were interested since I met you.’

‘I… Well, yes, he’s nice and not pushy like a lot of the men…’ Her eyes widened in horror. ‘I don’t have anything sexy, Aneka. “Sexy” is not a word to describe typical fashion where I come from.’

Heaving a sigh, Aneka considered some options. Delta throwing herself at Monkey was probably out; she did not have the experience, obviously, and it would likely scare him more than arouse him. ‘Okay, you go get food. I’ll go to the fabricator and get something made for you. I’ll get it to your cabin. You just have to wear it and promise not to chicken out.’

Delta looked distinctly uncomfortable, but she nodded. ‘Uh, Aneka?’

‘Yes, Delta.’

‘What’s a chicken?’

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‘I assume the reason my son is looking blithely happy and making doe eyes at Delta has something to do with you missing dinner last night, Aneka?’ Gillian said as they worked over the flight deck of the Agroa Gar.

‘She needed a push, so did he,’ Aneka replied. ‘I fabricated her some thigh-high boots and a corset.’

‘A corset?’ Ella asked.

‘Uh, yeah… Like that basque you persuaded me to buy on Harriamon, but with more uplift and a far tighter waist. She needed the extra confidence. In case you hadn’t noticed, her breasts sag a little. Probably spending nearly thirty years in high gravity. Anyway, it seems like it did the trick. Monkey looked the type who’d go for the dominatrix look.’

Ella frowned. ‘No panties?’

‘A black thong. She’d have freaked if I’d suggested that degree of nudity.’

‘Sounds kind of… covering for seduction-wear.’

‘I can queue up the same outfit in your size if you wish?’ Al suggested. The AI was very good at predicting Aneka’s needs and wants; far too good at times.

‘See if they’ve got a pattern for a riding crop too,’ Aneka silently replied. Aloud she said, ‘These cable jacks on the consoles, they’re what they used to connect into the ship?’ The black cables were probably useless now; like all the other bio-plastic on the ship they had degraded, died, and were quite brittle.

‘Multi-core fibre-optic,’ Gillian replied by way of confirmation. ‘You don’t have a port for connecting one somewhere?’

‘Where would she imagine it was hidden?’ Al asked. Gillian raised an eyebrow at Aneka’s smirk.

‘Al wants to know where you think they hid one. I think I’ve just got the wireless networking.’

‘Technically,’ Al said, ‘there is a hard-link port near the base of your skull. It’s covered and left over from when the original frame was being programmed. Your mind and my software were uploaded through it. You’d need surgery to get to it now. It was never meant to be used after your skin was put on.’

‘I think we’ll stick with just the wireless idea.’

Gillian was looking upward. ‘Aneka, do you think you could open that panel up there?’

The panel in question was big, taking up a two-metre-diameter portion of the ceiling. Aneka doubted she could have managed it alone under normal conditions, but with the zero gravity… ‘I’ll give it a go,’ she said, pushing upward. Locking her boots to the ceiling, she examined one of the locking bolts and then pulled a universal driver from her belt. The head of the little motorised device locked into the slot in the bolt, an odd, eight-pointed star design, and soon the bolt was being twisted out of its hole. She glanced around the circular hatchway. ‘This is going to take a short while. They really didn’t want this opened that easily.’

It took about thirty minutes to go around the entire hatch and then to prise the plate free and move it away from the hole it left in the ceiling. Thankfully there was no sign of any form of bug-eyed monster, or even a dead Xinti, in the space above. Instead there were large racks of computer equipment, silent and inactive, arranged in a circle around the access port.

‘That’s the primary computer system,’ Gillian said. ‘That’s what we need to get powered up so that we can access its memory. You see that large, sort of crystalline section?’ Aneka turned and saw what she meant; taking up about a quarter of the space was a block of semi-transparent material which refracted light oddly. ‘Holographic memory of some sort. We should get Abraham down here to look at it, and we need a full lidar map and any other sensor analysis we can before the power comes on.’

‘Well,’ Aneka said, ‘I can tell you what I see, and it looks like the whole thing is dead. There are no emissions beyond normal thermal. That memory block does some really odd things to the light moving through it, but it’s basically inert.’

Gillian gave a nod. ‘Gilroy to Drake. Could you get us a lidar drone up to the flight deck, Drake? We want the computer core scanned.’

‘Shannon’s on it,’ Drake’s voice replied over the comm units.

‘I’ll be right down,’ Wallace added.

Gillian smirked at Aneka and Ella. ‘What a surprise,’ she said.

~~~

‘It looks like there was a power surge when the reactor failed,’ Monkey told the rest of the team at the evening food and discussion gathering. ‘We’ve laid cables through to the main power converters and spliced them in, but we’re having to go through and check the conduits out of the reactor room one by one. Then we’re having to rig bypasses for the damaged sections with modern components.’

‘It’s taking longer than we thought,’ Delta added to emphasise the point.

‘Well,’ Gillian said, ‘we’re about done with our survey. Aneka can help you two tomorrow while Ella and I start working on the samples and such in the labs.’ She looked around. ‘Aneka missing her meal again?’

‘She said she had something to take care of,’ Ella replied. ‘I’ll let her know the change of assignment when I see her later.’

‘Hmm, I wonder what she’s up to this time. She’s already fixed my son’s love life.’

Both Monkey and Delta went scarlet, but neither said a word.

~~~

The door to the cabin opened and Ella walked in, coming to a sudden stop, her mouth dropping open. Aneka was standing in the space between the bunks and the table, dressed in a black, mock-leather corset which narrowed her waist and pushed her substantial breasts upward, a tiny black G-string, and thigh-high, black, stiletto-heeled boots. She was slowly tapping a riding crop against her right thigh and trying to keep a straight face while all she wanted to do was grin.

‘Now then,’ Aneka said, ‘tell me again how this is not good seduction-wear.’

‘I… take it all back,’ Ella replied, her voice barely making it over a whisper.

Aneka slapped her leather-clad thigh sharply with the crop. ‘Not good enough! Get that suit off and you can tell me in much greater detail while you’re licking my boots.’

‘Oh Vashma,’ Ella breathed as her hands started undoing her suit seal before her mind had caught up with what she was doing.

Aneka allowed herself a smirk.

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‘Doesn’t that thing restrict your breathing?’ Ella asked. The thong had been dispensed with, but Aneka was still encased in corset and boots, and they were lying, happy and satiated on the bottom bunk.

‘Yes, but thankfully I don’t need to breathe that much.’

‘And people wore those in your time?’ Ella sounded slightly disbelieving.

‘Not routinely. A century earlier there was a fashion for hourglass figures and women would wear ridiculously tight corsets all the time. There were cases of fainting and even broken ribs. People will do stupid things for fashion.’

‘Tighter than that one?!’

‘Much tighter. At least I didn’t need a maid to lever me into this. Modern materials make it a lot easier. This one just contracts to the desired fitting like those jeans I have.’

‘I don’t think it’ll catch on.’

Aneka grunted a laugh. ‘No, sexy to you people is basically nude. It’s like you’ve lost the idea that a bit of mystery helps. You’re so used to everyone being pretty, and everyone being happy with their bodies, that you just display the goods to anyone who wants to look.’ She frowned. ‘And yet you still have bikinis.’

Ella gave a shrug. ‘I guess a little covering up does make it more exciting when you get to see what’s beneath. It’s different now though. Pretty much everyone is attractive so you have to look at more than the surface to find someone you want to be with. Seeing everything up front doesn’t make that much difference.’

Aneka gave a soft grunt. ‘Except that’s so much gopi, right? You said yourself that no one wanted to be with you when you were disfigured. If everyone’s beautiful, then no one has to settle for an ugly partner. If they’d got to know you they’d have seen what a gorgeous girl there was under that messed up face, but they just looked at the outside and went off to find a cheerleader.’

Ella was silent for a while. The Jenlay seemed to dislike having the hypocrisies of their society pointed out, but generally Ella was better about it than most. Finally she said, ‘What’s a cheerleader?’

Aneka laughed. ‘You’d have made a great one.’

~~~

Aneka floated near the main flight console of the Agroa Gar, her eyes scanning the room slowly and her pistol in her hand. In the engineering section, Bashford was doing something similar, except that he was holding a laser carbine. None of the academics were aboard the ship; they were considered non-combatants. If something went wrong at this stage all Hell could break loose and the last thing they needed was a group of easy targets for some automated defence system. Not that they had found evidence of one, but you never knew with alien technology.

Aneka had actually suggested that she be alone on the ship. Her hardened chassis could handle a lot more than Bashford, or the two people rigging the final stage of the power cabling, Delta and Monkey. Bashford had looked at her until she had backed down. He was probably right, of course, but if he got himself killed she was going to murder him.

‘We’re ready,’ Monkey said over the radio.

‘All our sensor systems are active and recording,’ Ella added. She was in the station control room with Gillian. Wallace and Cassandra, along with Drake and Shannon, were back on the Hyde. If they had to disconnect quickly and pull away, Drake had wanted the majority of people already aboard.

‘Aneka?’ Bashford’s voice asked her status.

‘My sensors are active and recording too.’

‘Close the connection,’ Bashford ordered. There was a pause and then…

Aneka’s gyroscopic balance landed her smoothly on her feet, but she heard a chorus of expletives from the other people aboard the ship. ‘Gravity still works,’ she commented. Her eyes scanned the consoles which now had flickering patterns of characters moving over them. ‘Nothing much else seems to.’

‘I am detecting an internal wireless network,’ Al informed her. ‘However, no data is being transferred across it. Basic access point identification broadcasts and nothing else.’

‘We’re showing some radio transmissions from within the ship,’ Ella said, confirming Al’s findings, more or less. ‘Short bursts. Is something talking?’

Xinti speech used a highly compressed, near-digital form which had been mistaken for radio static until Aneka had identified it. This was not Xinti however. ‘Just wireless base station transmissions,’ Aneka said. ‘According to Al anyway. Nothing else is saying anything and the display panels in here are showing random glyphs. I don’t recognise anything you’d call a proper word.’

‘All right,’ Bashford cut in. ‘We run a full sweep of the ship, establish there’s nothing here that’s going to murder us all, and then we can let our no doubt eager research team back aboard.’

Aneka nodded and started for the door. A brief pulse of sound, not a word, just a signal, drew her attention to one of the consoles where something was pulsing slowly. Computer Online, firmware active, diagnostic systems offline, core intelligence offline. ‘It looks like the computer is up, but its mind isn’t working,’ she reported to the others.

‘Possibly for the best,’ Gillian replied. ‘We don’t want this one committing suicide on us.’

Aneka nodded, even if they could not see her. ‘I’ll take the port side, Bash. You guys cover the starboard. Good for you?’

‘Given that you’re the combat android, yes.’

~~~

‘The computer system seems to be largely unresponsive,’ Gillian said as she stood in front of one of the consoles, prodding at the virtual keyboard it was displaying with no effect. ‘The memory core must be severely degraded.’

‘Maybe,’ Ella began and then stopped.

‘What, Ella?’ the Doctor prompted.

‘Aneka and Bash would think it was a bad idea.’

‘We might as well hear it,’ Aneka told her, wondering how bad an idea it was.

‘Well, maybe Al could connect through the wireless system and start some data recovery on the memory. Like he did with Aneka’s memory.’

‘I could,’ Al said to Aneka.

‘He could,’ Aneka said aloud, ‘but you’re right, that doesn’t sound amazingly safe.’

Gillian looked at Bashford, standing beside the door with his carbine still cradled in his arms. ‘It’s up to Aneka and Al,’ he replied. ‘I don’t see how anything is going to progress unless you can recover the thing’s storage, but it’s Al that’s risking his, uh, life to do this. That said, if the system is that badly damaged, I doubt there are active security systems which would present a threat.’

‘I concur with Mister Bashford’s analysis,’ Al commented.

Aneka considered the matter for what seemed like several minutes to her, but was likely a second to everyone else. ‘All right, but we take precautions. There’s that examination table in the lab. We strap me down to that first. If something takes control of my body I won’t be able to go anywhere.’

Both Ella and Cassandra frowned at her. ‘The last time you were on that bench they were cutting you open,’ Ella stated, worried.

‘It’s a good thing the arms with the cutting gear aren’t there then, isn’t it?’

~~~

The ‘bench’ was roughly X-shaped, designed to stretch the occupant out for examination. Not trusting that the ship would not be able to control the metal bindings on it, Aneka had made them hold her down with the future version of duct tape; strips of high-strength, nanofibre reinforced setae strip were wrapped around her ankles, wrists, and waist. She felt very secure, and a little nervous. Despite her bravado, being back on the bench was not a thrilling experience.

Ella had not been entirely correct. The last time Aneka remembered being in the Agroa Gar’s lab was just before the reactor accident. The Xinti aboard the ship had been trying to ‘condition’ her, whatever that meant. While better than having a circular saw carving her stomach open, it had not been a great experience.

‘Let’s get this over with,’ Aneka said to Al. ‘I want out of here as soon as possible.’

‘Initiating data link,’ Al informed her.

‘He’s going in,’ Aneka said aloud. Around the room, the other members of the team watched nervously. That was not really helping Aneka’s mood either.

‘Connection established,’ Al said. ‘Attempting to access basic interfaces…’ There was a pause which felt far too long. Aneka was about to say something when he continued. ‘Key systems held in static memory are intact. Atmospheric processing, internal gravity obviously, inertial compensation system, basic input-output mechanisms have all restarted normally. The core machine operating system is up and operating within parameters. Access to bulk data storage is operating, but there is extensive damage to the data across all sectors.’

Tilting her head back to look at Gillian, Aneka said, ‘Al says the basic ship’s functions and the bottom-level operating system are functional. I think he said that those programs are held in some sort of solid-state storage system. The main memory of the thing is basically garbage at the moment.’

‘Can he fix it?’ Ella asked.

‘That was a reasonably accurate summary,’ Al commented, a touch of humour in his tone. ‘I am uploading a data recovery program to attempt to restore function. It will, however, take some time to execute. Probably several days.’

‘He’s set something to work,’ Aneka reported, ‘but we’re probably looking at a few days before it’s got back what it can.’

‘Program uploaded and initiated, connection severed,’ Al told her.

‘Now can someone get me off this thing.’

Ella was grinning. ‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘Just think of the possibilities.’

‘Yeah, I could freak out during bondage sex. You can tie me up in our cabin if you want, just get me off this damn bench!’

Corax, 10.8.524 FSC.

If Corax was a moon, it was a really big moon. Half the diameter of New Earth, it also had half the gravity, and it managed to hold onto a thin, entirely un-breathable atmosphere. With a surface temperature a bit over one hundred and twenty kelvin, it was a little cold for most people as well, so the facilities there were all underground or in surface domes. Primarily it was used as a research and military base. The Navy did hostile environment training there and there were various low-gravity research stations.

There was also a small colony of Torem living there since the gravity was more suited to that race. Aneka, Ella, and Shannon were down there to collect one of them, but that was going to be happening the following day. First, with nothing much to do but wait for Al’s program to do its work, they were taking some shore leave.

The spaceport could only handle small craft, nothing much bigger than the Hyde’s shuttle would fit in the landing bays, and there were few facilities for visitors. Most people coming to Corax were headed for longer-term accommodation in the Torem Enclave, the military base, or corporate housing facilities. There was a small transit hotel, however, and that was where the three of them had encamped, taking just one room which did cut down on costs, but also made the inevitable group sex easier. The room had one thing that Aneka wanted to use as soon as she saw it: a really good shower.

The Garnet Hyde had perfectly efficient showers with running water, but they were cramped and designed to use the minimum of water to the maximum effect. Here there was lots of space and, while the lowered gravity made the drops bigger and slower, Aneka stood under the jets and sighed as she was gently rained on. Ella would likely want to join her at some point in the trip, but for now Aneka was last in, alone, and could take her time.

Finally turning off the water, she engaged the other neat feature of the cubicle and turned slowly to allow jets of warm air to dry her before grabbing one of the over-fluffy towels you only find in hotels to finish her hair and walking out into the bedroom.

‘Nice?’ Ella asked from her position sprawled on the bed.

‘Gorgeous.’

Shannon was sat at the room’s terminal, looking at several windows of information. ‘There’s a floor show on at Feathers,’ she said. ‘It’s a little rougher than Copperhead, but a lot more fun. The naval staff tend to go there. Copperhead is… more corporate.’

‘You know this place then?’

‘I used to run shuttle flights to and from New Earth for a while. Got to know Corax reasonably well.’ She gave a wistful sigh. ‘I was fucking this big marine who was stationed here for a while. Not much brain to speak of, but a huge cock. Both are advantages when you’re a telepath who likes it a little rough.’

Aneka and Ella laughed. Aneka said, ‘Okay, you’re the expert so Feathers it is. What sort of clothing is appropriate?’

‘The usual,’ Shannon replied, shutting down the terminal. ‘Minimal.’

~~~

Minimal was something Ella took very seriously. Her skirt was at least two inches shorter than Aneka’s, maybe an inch shorter than Shannon’s, and her top was a strappy, wrap-around affair which would have been tight and moderately revealing even if it had not covered her breasts in nothing more than fishnet. Since she was a little self-conscious about her height relative to Aneka, she was in black, platform pumps with a little ankle strap. Apparently Aneka’s lesson on ‘less is more’ had not sunk in yet. To be fair, Shannon was not a lot better in a Plastex mini-skirt and an Ultraskin bra which was at least opaque, though the uplift on it showed off her magnificent breasts rather extravagantly. Aneka had elected to wear her basque, which she liked, and a skirt Ella had persuaded her to buy which was short, and largely semi-transparent lace, but it still managed to hide what was beneath effectively.

That explained many of the looks the three women got as they walked through the tunnels and plazas which made up the main habitat of Corax Commercial Station, the central hub of activity on the moon. The hotel was on one edge of it, next to the spaceport, and the bulk of the area immediately beside those buildings seemed to be either shops or offices of some sort. The entire structure was low, generally no more than a single storey in height, but built like a maze. There were some taller structures built under domes which sometimes broke the surface of Corax to show the grey sky above. Most of them seemed to belong to one company or another which had research facilities in other parts of the complex. A couple of the larger domes were more like public parks or plazas, and that was where the majority of the looks from those standing around were obtained.

Feathers had its entrance set into the side of one of these plazas. It was out of the way, off the main areas of the complex, while they had passed Copperhead within a couple of minutes of leaving the hotel. This, Aneka guessed, was where the locals came for their entertainment. Watching people getting turned away at the door by the two bulky looking bouncers, she was actually unsure of getting in, but one of the men gave them a quick glance and then waved them through without comment. They walked in through the matte black door, down a short corridor, and then through onto the club’s main floor. Aneka came to a stop, her mouth falling open.

The ‘floor show’ was a group of four men and three women performing what could best be described as exhibition sex on a round stage in the middle of the large, more or less circular room. The rest of the floor area was tables with four to six chairs arranged around them. Several of the larger tables had dancers on them, all in various states of undress, and most of the customers appeared to be either locals or military. You could spot the navy types by their not-quite-uniforms of dark green T-shirt and slacks, and sometimes a jacket.

‘You get me dressed up as a hooker and then you bring me here?’ Aneka commented wryly.

Shannon was already heading for an empty table, one of the larger ones. ‘Don’t worry, paid sex is on the next floor up.’

‘Comforting.’ Aneka followed her to the table and they sat down with a good view of the stage, though that was lost fairly quickly as a tall blonde wearing only high heels appeared, climbed nimbly onto the table, and began dancing. A topless waitress appeared for their drinks order almost as fast. Feathers obviously catered to a particular market: the sex-starved. Aneka was a little surprised that it had any customers.

After a moment or two Aneka had given up on the stage and was watching the dancer. ‘Is that a particular dance style? Aside from “sensual.”’

‘It’s based heavily on the Torem mating dances,’ Ella supplied. ‘It’s actually quite difficult to learn for a Human. You have to be very flexible. My mother is great at it. I’m… not too bad. The dances evolved in low gravity, so this place is perfect for them.’

Aneka nodded at their dancer. ‘Well she seems to be very good.’ The dancer smiled and appeared to add an extra bit of sensuality to the smooth, writhing motion of her movements.

‘You’ve made a friend,’ Al said and a window popped up in Aneka’s vision field. It contained contact details for the dancer; her name was Lena Backfall. As usual, Aneka was not really sure what to make of these overtures.

‘You’ve been quiet,’ she said to cover her mild embarrassment.

‘I haven’t. I’ve simply not been talking to you. I tapped into the local communications network and I’ve been talking to Cassandra. She finds this interplay between organics fascinating.’

‘I’m not organic.’

‘Lena thinks you are.’

He had a point. Once again diverting the conversation she said, ‘You seem to spend a lot of time talking to Cassandra.’

‘She’s… fascinating. I’ve never encountered an emergent AI before. Xinti AIs were all created specifically and with a purpose. She created herself and, like any organic, has had to discover a purpose for herself.’

‘If she keeps talking, she must find you interesting.’

‘I believe she is interested in my purpose-driven nature as I find her nature compelling.’

‘Uh-huh. That’s it? Just a mutual interest in discovering more about your natures?’

‘Of course. Your drink has arrived. Watching Ella get drunk is always fascinating.’

Aneka picked up her glass of wine and took a sip; it tasted about as much like wine as the coffee tasted like coffee. ‘And fast,’ she said. ‘She may be up there with the dancer before the evening’s out.’

‘As long as she isn’t on the stage.’

~~~

With the second round of drinks the waitress brought a note that told Aneka that Lena would be finishing her shift in an hour. The girl was keen, that was for certain. Ella’s view on the matter was predictable: she suggested they invite Lena to the hotel.

Any decision was put off for the time being by the arrival of three men at the table. They were all navy, and a mismatched bunch. One was big, heavy on the muscle, with short-cropped, blond hair, and a slightly flattened nose. One was handsome, dark-haired, fit, and self-confident, and the last was smaller than his companions, clearly the one who followed rather then led. They sat down without being asked, though the third looked hesitant about it.

‘Are you boys lost?’ Shannon asked, her eyes on the handsome one who was sat beside her.

‘I’m a trained navigator,’ the man replied. ‘I don’t get lost. I’m Brin, this is Donnal,’ he indicated the big man, ‘and over there is Kennan. We thought you looked lonely.’

‘Thought you might like to come upstairs with us,’ Donnal said. Aneka saw Brin’s eyes twitch at the unsubtle suggestion. Kennan’s cheeks coloured.

Shannon turned to Aneka. ‘They rent rooms by the hour as well as people.’

‘I’d guessed,’ Aneka replied. ‘Charming as the thought of playing pro for some horny sailors is, I’ll pass.’

Donnal, it seemed, did not wish to give up so easily. ‘Tell you what. Drinking contest. You match me, shot for shot, and we’ll call it quits. You lose, you come upstairs.’

‘What do we get out of this?’

‘Free drinks?’ Brin suggested.

Aneka looked around at Ella and Shannon; both of them were trying not to laugh. ‘All right, you have a deal.’ It was going to be a cheap evening.

~~~

An hour later Donnal was looking slightly shaky, and Aneka was not behaving any differently than before. Ella, on her third glass of wine, was getting on quite well with Kennan. He had got the impression early on that she was not interested and that actually seemed to make him relax. Similarly, Brin was chatting casually with Shannon as though the outcome of the drinking contest meant nothing to him. Aneka was pretty sure he did not have a lot of trouble getting women who actually wanted him, so a failed conquest this evening was not going to harm his self-esteem.

They were all members of the same crew aboard the Delta Cuprina, a frigate. The Delta-class frigates were, apparently, among the fastest fighting ships in the fleet, but theirs was in dry dock and they were doing hostile environment training in the downtime. It was, according to Brin, hard work and unlikely to ever get used in action.

‘I did the equivalent years back,’ Aneka commented as she waited for Donnal to sink his next shot. ‘Jungle survival training in Brunei.’

‘You’re that woman they found on the Xinti ship, right?’ Kennan said.

Aneka suppressed a wince; she hated being famous. ‘Uh-huh. Ella was one of the ones that found me. Shannon’s co-pilot on the Garnet Hyde, which was the ship that found the derelict.’

‘So this “Brunei” was on Old Earth?’

‘A small country in Southeast Asia.’ Donnal put his glass down, empty, and Aneka threw back her next shot without a second’s thought. ‘I spent two weeks with mud in every crack and nothing to eat but grubs. It didn’t leave me with a great love for the place.’

‘I heard you were ex-military,’ Brin said. ‘Didn’t recognise you from the vid footage. You’re… better looking in reality.’ His eyes were on her chest when he said it; did the camera shrink her boobs?

‘Thank you.’

‘You’re also not even slurring and Donnal’s about to keel over.’

Aneka smiled. ‘I really don’t get drunk easily.’

Donnal gave a grunt and conceded defeat. ‘If I won I doubt I could do ’nything ’bout it.’ He sagged back in his seat and gave her a broad grin. ‘Y’re one chin man da pyow tser.’

Brin pinched the bridge of his nose and shook his head, but Aneka just laughed. ‘And thank you, Donnal. I think.’

Ella was giggling. ‘Serioushly, Donnal, you’ve no idea how tough.’

‘I think,’ Brin said, ‘we’d best get Donnal back to base and sobered up before the Reps see him. He only speaks Rimmic when he’s hammered.’

Aneka sank her last shot because it was there. ‘Nice meeting you. We should get Ella to bed as well.’

‘You’re calling Lena though, right?’ Ella said as they walked to the door.

‘Sending a message now,’ Al said when Aneka had not said ‘no’ after a second.

‘What did he actually call Aneka?’ Shannon asked.

‘One tough bitch,’ Ella supplied.

Shannon chuckled. ‘Got that right.’

~~~

Shannon lifted her head from between Ella’s legs long enough to say, ‘Feels like Lena’s arrived.’

Aneka, watching them from the desk chair, rose smoothly to her feet. ‘Good, I could do with someone to entertain me.’ The buzzer on the door went a second later.

‘More than just her, you might have your hands full. And various orifices probably.’

‘Odd, she didn’t say she was bringing anyone when she replied.’ Rooms at the hotel did not have a spy hole in the door, they had cameras outside the room, and it took just a thought for the view from it to appear in Aneka’s vision field. Lena was there, wearing a dress which carried the name only because there was no other name for a garment that shape; it largely seemed to consist of string holding cloth panels in strategic positions. And she appeared to be alone. Aneka stopped. ‘You’re sure there are people with her?’ Lena’s face was invisible from this angle, but her body language was tense.

‘Two or three, the noise in my head is that much louder.’ Both Shannon and Ella had stopped what they were doing now, picking up on Aneka’s tone.

‘In the bathroom, both of you. Something’s not right.’ They scurried to obey and Aneka stepped forward, mustering an excuse for why answering the door had taken so long. She had concluded that being naked was going to be excuse enough in the second or so it took to reach the door and press the panel that opened it. The excuse was not needed anyway.

Lena was pushed towards Aneka as soon as the door opened, a move designed to be distracting in all probability. It failed because Aneka could see the two men in optical-adaptive camouflage suits behind her; the suits masked heat signature well enough, as well as mimicking the local visual spectrum, but Aneka’s eyes covered more wavelengths than that. She stepped aside, leaving Lena to fall, half on the bed, and raised her right hand towards the first of the men coming through after the dancer. The force generator in her hand was not especially powerful, but it was pretty much like being smacked in the face with a baseball bat. He fell backwards into his teammate, and Aneka now had the advantage.

The impact must have disturbed the optical system in the suits because the two of them became visible in a disturbing flicker of digital noise. Aneka found herself looking at two male figures with muscular, heavy bodies, both of them encased from head to foot in smooth, white Plastex. There had to be some sort of video relay between the outside of the suit and the inside or neither would have been able to see, but Aneka was more concerned about the gun the second man was pulling. She dived out into the corridor, landing full length on top of the thug. Her left hand grabbed his right wrist and held it, her left clamped over the man’s throat and squeezed. He struggled, still trying to pull the gun, but his organic muscles were no match for Aneka’s cybernetic ones and he was rapidly losing oxygen flow to the brain. He struggled, tried hitting at her, and none of it did much to change his situation. After about fifteen seconds his struggles weakened and, to Aneka’s amazement, he actually started getting aroused. Then the struggling stopped entirely.

Aneka pulled the two pistols the men were carrying, both stun guns from the looks of them, and turned around. Shannon had dragged Lena onto the bed and was holding her there, wrists trapped at the small of her back. Ella was standing close by holding a vase by the neck and looking ready to hit someone with it. ‘You two were supposed to stay out of the way,’ Aneka commented.

‘I can handle myself in a fight,’ Shannon replied. ‘Not like you, maybe, but Drake taught me a few things.’

‘I’m quite sure he has,’ Aneka replied, stepping back into the room. She did not bother closing the door being sure that it would be opening again soon. ‘Wrestling moves, no doubt.’ She grabbed Lena’s long, blonde hair and pulled her head back. ‘Security will be here in a few seconds. You’ve that long to tell me why I won’t be sending you along with the two unconscious thugs.’

‘They… they said they’d kill me if…’

‘She’s telling the truth,’ Shannon said softly. ‘They said they’d do more than kill her.’

Aneka nodded; being a telepath really had to suck sometimes, but it was useful. ‘You didn’t know they were there. They followed you in and the first you knew about them was when they pushed you into the room.’ She glanced at Shannon. ‘Let her up, but keep her with us. She’s not leaving when the cops do.’

Lena sat up, rubbing her wrists. ‘W-what are you going to do with me?’

Aneka leaned in close and whispered, ‘Violence always makes me wet.’ It was a lie, but it sounded really badass.

~~~

Lena lay on the bed, her large breasts heaving and covered in sweat. She was fit and very flexible, but she had had three women on her for over an hour. ‘Please,’ she panted. ‘A short break…’ She had been very eager to please after the Peacekeepers had left; Aneka figured she deserved a rest.

‘Okay, I think we could all do with one. We don’t have to be up early do we, Shannon?’

Shannon gave a smirk and shook her head. ‘We have to pick up the Torem at fifteen hundred. Other than that the day’s ours.’

Lena swallowed hard. She could probably see them keeping her there until then. Aneka gave her as evil a grin as she could manage; it seemed to make the misapprehension stronger. ‘Why did those two goons pick on you?’ Aneka asked.

‘I don’t know. They grabbed me at the club. They must’ve seen me dancing for you. They said I should try to get you back to my place, but when you invited me here they said that would do. I was to get you to open the door and then… How did you get the Peacekeepers to let you go without questioning you?’

‘Friends in high places.’ Aneka had sent a message through to Winter, head of the Federation’s security organisation, with a video of the two men attached. Ten minutes after the Peacekeepers had arrived they had received a call from their superiors saying they should take the men into custody and ‘let Miss Jansen get on with whatever she was doing.’ A minute after they had left, Aneka had received a message from Winter which said only, Looking into it. When people came after Aneka with weapons designed to capture, Winter tended to get interested.

‘You… you’re important?’

Ella giggled. Aneka said, ‘Not really. You just made my day though.’

‘Uh, how?’

‘You don’t know who I am.’

11.8.524 FSC.

Aneka’s first look at a female Torem left her wondering how they could tell the difference. Adjaxis, the Torem Ambassador to New Earth, had been ludicrously tall the way Wallace was: slim, with long fingers, and a fairly featureless face aside from the large, entirely black eyes. Tosimna, senior lecturer in warp theory at the Floating University, looked almost identical to him, including the fact that she was wearing a sparkly, blue and white, figure-hugging suit designed to help her operate in normal gravity. On Corax she did not really need it, but once they were on the shuttle she would have found it hard to function much as Wallace did.

‘The only visible difference,’ Al informed her as she waited to shake hands with only the third alien she had ever met, ‘is the crotch bulge which males have. It’s literally a bulge in the groin. They don’t have external sexual organs like Humans do.’

Now that he mentioned it, Aneka noted the variation in shape. ‘How do they…? No, forget I asked. I probably don’t want to know.’

Tosimna’s long fingers wrapped almost entirely around Aneka’s hand and her thin lips curled into something like a smile. ‘Aneka Jansen, the woman from Old Earth. It is a great pleasure to meet you.’

Aneka smiled back. ‘Hello, Doctor.’

‘Just Tosimna. We don’t use titles like that among my people.’

‘Okay. So long as you call me Aneka.’ Her smile turned quizzical. ‘Don’t Torem have some form of family name?’

There was a brief head-shake, more like a twitch. ‘If it comes to requiring a distinction, we list our parents. I would be Tosimna of Garla and Uneria. Now, I am anxious to see this wonderful engine Doctor Wallace has waiting for me.’

‘The shuttle’s loaded with the supplies we need,’ Shannon said. ‘We can get moving as soon as we’re aboard and I have flight clearance.’

‘Then let us proceed. By all accounts I have a considerable treat ahead of me.’

~~~

Despite wanting to spend more time around the Torem, Aneka sat in the co-pilot’s seat as they lifted off from the spaceport. Torem were naturally telepathic, all of them, and Tosimna might have noticed that Aneka had a very quiet mind. The plan was to have plenty of people around whenever they met, and failing that Ella was to make sure she was on hand. Ella’s thoughts were practically audible to non-telepaths; it was the one thing Shannon did not like about her.

Besides, Aneka still got a thrill from seeing the view through the cockpit windows as they climbed out of the moon’s thin atmosphere. The internal gravity field compensated for the acceleration from the engines so it was hard to tell they were even moving without looking out of a window. As the haziness of the air faded and the stars appeared around them, Aneka let out a sigh and sank back in her seat to watch.

‘Still digging space?’ Shannon asked, humour in her voice.

‘It’s still new to me. Especially like this. Aboard the Hyde there aren’t many windows to look out of.’ The shuttle was fitted out as a mobile laboratory, designed to house an expedition team at a dig site. Because of this it had fairly large windows along its length to allow the crew to observe the outside world even where the outside conditions were less than ideal.

Shannon’s fingers shifted over her control panel. ‘Well, we’ll have orbital insertion in ten minutes and docking in twenty-two, so you have that long to look.’ She pushed her chair back and climbed to her feet. ‘I’m just going to check on our passenger and cargo. Keep an eye on things and yell if anything looks odd.’

Aneka gave a slight grimace, but figured the ship would probably make something odd pretty obvious. ‘I guess I can do that, sure.’

Shannon grinned and patted her shoulder. ‘Don’t worry, these things fly themselves.’

The external communications system chimed for attention barely three minutes after Shannon had gone aft. Leaning forwards, Aneka tapped a glowing panel on the display in front of her. ‘Shuttle Alpha-Nine-Sixteen responding. Jansen here.’

‘Aneka, it’s Drake.’ The Captain’s voice sounded over the cockpit speakers, sounding a little surprised. ‘Is Shannon there?’

‘She’s in the back checking the cargo. I can get her…’

‘No need. Just pass the message along, would you? We’ve been registering some odd electromagnetic effects. They began yesterday and seem to have stopped, but we’d like you guys to run a fly-past and use the shuttle’s array for an external sweep.’

‘Tosimna won’t be pleased. She’s kind of impatient to see the warp core, but I guess she’ll appreciate the view of the ship.’

‘An impatient Torem? Don’t think I’ve ever met one. First time for everything.’

‘Huh. I’ll tell Shannon as soon as she gets back up here. It is okay she left me watching the cockpit, right?’

‘On orbital ascent? Yeah. Those things can do that on half an engine with their eyes closed. I’d chew her out if it was during docking.’

Aneka laughed. ‘She’d probably enjoy that.’

‘Not that kind of chewing out. See you soon. Drake out.’

Aneka shut off the channel at her end and looked back out at the star-sprinkled blackness. Odd electromagnetic effects; what did that mean?

‘Something we won’t know until we return to the station,’ Al commented.

‘Unless this sensor sweep shows something up?’

‘If they believe the anomalies have stopped, I suspect not.’

~~~

Shannon’s hands moved over sliders and pads as she manipulated the shuttle’s attitude thrusters, bringing the small vessel past the Agroa Gar in a loop which kept the nose and primary sensor array pointed at the Xinti vessel at all times. Aneka was impressed with the coordination involved; there seemed to be little connecting the woman’s actions with the ship’s movements, and skilled operation of a non-intuitive system was always impressive.

Behind Aneka’s right shoulder, Ella was sat at the control station for the sensor suite and she was pretty busy as well, though it was mostly to do with reading and interpreting incoming baseline data, and then setting the sensors to perform more detailed scans where she spotted anything odd. She was not spotting anything odd.

‘And that is where you spent much of the last thousand years?’ Tosimna’s voice behind them made everyone jump except for Aneka; superior hearing was a significant benefit of the whole robot body package.

‘More like twelve hundred,’ Aneka corrected, ‘but who’s counting. It wasn’t like I was aware of the time passing.’

‘Yes… Nanostasis, I believe. A lost technology. There have been experiments conducted in recreating it, but none of them… ended well.’

Aneka gave the Torem a glance. ‘I don’t actually understand the difference between that and the cold sleep they use on the Hyde.’

‘Not my speciality,’ Tosimna replied, ‘but my understanding is that synthetic nanomachines invade the body’s cells constructing… um, I suppose the best term would be scaffolding which locks the entirety of the system into metastasis. Nothing changes, you don’t age or decay. In some ways, you stop being a biological object. Or perhaps you become a snapshot of a biological entity. Without the proper coding to reverse the state…’

‘It doesn’t end well?’ Aneka suggested.

‘No. That said, while freezer deaths are rare, when they happen they are generally very unpleasant. With nanostasis you just don’t return to life.’

‘Huh. Getting anything, Ella?’

‘No, not really. The electronics aboard the Agroa Gar seem to be more active than they were a day or so ago…’

‘The data correction algorithms are likely to become more active as they work through greater numbers of index sectors and find large chunks of file,’ Al commented inside Aneka’s head.

‘…but there’s nothing particularly anomalous showing up,’ Ella finished. ‘I’ll send the data through to the station anyway. You may as well take us in, Shannon.’

Giving a curt nod, Shannon shifted her hands over the controls and the shuttle reoriented itself towards the underside of the Garnet Hyde. ‘Shuttle to station, we’re coming in. Nothing to report.’

Drake’s voice sounded over the speakers. ‘Probably just some transient interference. Maybe the military were running some test or other.’

‘Or someone on a training course screwed up,’ Shannon agreed.

Aneka frowned. ‘I thought they did hostile environment training here.’

‘They do,’ Drake replied.

‘Should a trainee have access to something that causes weird effects in orbit on a survival course?’

‘Well, if we have no joy explaining it internally, we’ll ask them. Cleared for docking. Bay doors are open.’

‘Bringing her around,’ Shannon said. ‘Everyone get a seat and strap in.’

12.8.524 FSC.

A yellow message in Aneka’s morning diagnostics caught her attention. ‘Al, what does “Full storage defragmentation and categorisation not completed” mean?’

There was a tiny pause. ‘I’ll shelve the sarcastic answer. The algorithms which optimise your long-term memory did not run to completion, which is odd, but not a serious problem unless it starts happening on a regular basis.’

‘Why wouldn’t it? Run all the way through, I mean.’

‘Well, it should always be able to run to completion. We should keep an eye on it. I’ll schedule a more extensive diagnostic run on your hard storage for tonight in case there are failing sectors. You were offline for over a millennium. Some of the data losses you incurred, the holes in your memory, could be due to physical faults which were not detected.’

‘Can they be fixed?’

‘Perhaps, but even if they can’t they can be marked as faulty and the system will avoid putting things there.’

‘Just so long as I don’t lose more.’

‘The memory integrity check came back clean. Nothing else is being lost.’

‘Good. I don’t want to discover I can’t remember my name again.’

~~~

There was music playing on the Agroa Gar’s flight deck when Aneka walked in. She looked between Gillian and Ella, and grimaced. ‘Where the Hell… No, why the Hell are you playing Justin Bieber?’ She noticed Monkey perched on a seat at the sensor console nodding; he obviously was not impressed either.

Gillian turned, frowning. ‘I rather liked it. We discovered a huge archive of material apparently taken from whatever the Internet was called back then.’

‘The Internet,’ Aneka supplied. ‘Sometimes the “World Wide Web,” or just the Web.’

‘Oh, well, it seems that they gathered vast amounts of material from it and stored it for research purposes.’

‘Well, I know they looked at it. That’s why I got a boob job done when they constructed this body. The idea that my body was reconfigured to suit the ideals on the Internet was not one of Al’s finer comments.’

‘How were they to know?’ Al asked.

It was a good point, but not one she wanted to hear. Instead she walked over to the console. The interface was in Xinti, but there were both basic and complex search functions. Aneka typed, grinned, and then selected one of the returned tracks. Elvis Presley erupted into the opening bars of ‘Blue Suede Shoes’. ‘There you go, your favourite royal singer.’

‘This,’ Ella said, ‘was what “The King” sounded like?’

‘One of his rockier numbers. He did ballads, things with more blues to them.’ She shrugged. ‘I wasn’t a big fan.’

‘I can see why. Is there anything in here you did like?’

Aneka typed and then tapped, and Disturbed’s ‘Down with the Sickness’ began blasting out. ‘This is more my style.’

Monkey was now standing behind them. ‘Wow, that’s… good. It’s more… I don’t know, it’s more raw than modern music.’

Aneka chuckled. ‘Yeah, somehow I could see you at a Disturbed concert.’ Her fingers moved over the keys again. ‘Maybe they’ve stored some movies. I may be saved from those interminable sex comedies you lot like so much.’ The screen changed and Aneka found herself looking at a list of films.

‘Looks like they did,’ Gillian commented.

Aneka nodded, her hands lifting away from the screen. It was displaying what she wanted, but she was almost sure she had not finished typing in the query.

~~~

The chatter at lunchtime was almost exclusively about warp engines. Aneka ate what passed for ham sandwiches, though the meat had very little to do with ham, and let the voices pass over her. She had almost no clue what they were talking about. The basic concept of a warp drive she had mastered: the engines compressed space ahead of the ship and expanded it behind. This allowed the vessel to travel at faster-than-light velocities as far as the wider universe was concerned, but at no time was the ship itself actually exceeding light speed within its frame of reference. Her brother had been very much into science fiction and she remembered him mentioning the idea that warp speed, just like in Star Trek, was possible. She seemed to recall that the problem was the amount of energy required.

That problem, it seemed, had been solved, but the Agroa Gar’s drive apparently presented a different issue. ‘The synchronisation hardware between the two cores,’ Tosimna was saying, ‘must somehow be able to pass data from one core to the next at faster-than-light speeds.’

‘It wouldn’t have to be much faster,’ Wallace countered, ‘but I do agree. Some form of short-range tachyon system?’

‘I would suspect a coupled quantum entanglement mechanism. More reliable over such a short distance. The particles could be generated just prior to engaging the drive. I have a simulation program that could be adapted to this configuration. Perhaps we could work on that this afternoon?’

Wallace grinned wolfishly. ‘Sounds fascinating. We’ll use the station labs, more comfortable for both of us.’

Ella leaned over towards Aneka. ‘I think Doc Wallace is in love,’ she whispered.

Aneka glanced at Cassandra who was looking on with an indulgent smile. ‘She’s rather enjoying his infatuation,’ Al commented.

‘More people watching?’ Aneka asked silently.

‘Everyone needs a hobby.’

‘Did you manage to look at that data we uncovered regarding the reactor failure, Abraham?’ Gillian asked. They had managed to find the computer’s logs and data recorders from the period leading up to the accident. There was nothing after it.

‘Cassandra has been analysing the data leading up to the explosion,’ Wallace said.

‘It appears that there were disruptions in the ship’s power systems for almost an hour prior to the eventual failure,’ Cassandra informed them.

‘I remember them saying something about that,’ Aneka said. ‘It’s why they paused my “conditioning” and stuck me in stasis.’

‘Yes. There were disruptions in control systems; the communications system went offline preventing them from calling for help. If I were to theorise, I would suggest that some of the damage Monkey and Delta attributed to a power surge actually happened prior to the reactor failure.’

Wallace grunted. ‘That fits with the data from the actual explosion then. The data recorders suggest some form of violent heat burst immediately before the reactor blows and, obviously, nothing more was recorded.’

Aneka frowned. ‘Are you saying what I think you’re saying?’

‘I’m proposing that the accident which trapped you in space was not an accident. Someone sabotaged the power systems on the Agroa Gar.’

13.8.524 FSC.

This morning the diagnostics showed no yellow lines; everything was, once again, optimal. Optimal aside from the time. Aneka frowned at the sequence of time displays as they appeared in the list, double-checking that she was reading them right before asking Al about them.

‘I was offline for two hours longer than normal?’

When he answered the AI seemed as perplexed as she was. ‘That would be what the downtime figure would seem to indicate.’

‘Well, I don’t need the rest…’

‘Perhaps you did. If the optimisation routines failed to complete last time, they may have taken longer to run this time.’

‘Yeah… Except if that’s the case, why didn’t they run longer yesterday? I’d like you to supervise some diagnostic runs today, while I’m awake. Run through everything and keep an eye on the results. As detailed as you can go.’

‘That will mean some of your normal support functions will be offline while I’m doing it. Basic senses won’t be affected, but you’ll lose the wide-spectrum overlay facility and some of your extended senses.’

‘I think I can manage.’

‘I’ll start now then. This is likely to take a while.’

‘Take all the time you need. If there’s something going wrong, I want to know about it.’

~~~

‘Al’s answer does seem logical,’ Ella said. Aneka had told her and Gillian about the odd glitches in her systems while they were trawling through more of the computer’s databanks. ‘Though you’re right that it seems odd that they just didn’t run longer the night they were delayed if they could do that.’

‘Perhaps some other factor made them run longer,’ Gillian suggested. ‘The sector checks, for example.’

‘Yeah,’ Aneka conceded. ‘There’s probably a perfectly reasonable explanation, and that sounds like a good one.’

‘What does Al have to say about it?’

‘Al’s busy. He’s been quiet all morning. I think he even told Cassandra he would be too busy to talk today.’

Ella giggled. ‘Those two are getting very pally.’

‘They have a mutual interest and they’re both volitional AIs.’

‘Mutual interest?’

‘Cassandra finds people fascinating and Al was engineered to observe me and my interactions with others. I think she finds Al interesting too. She’s an emergent, right? He was created with a specific purpose. She finds his psychology interesting. I find it… I can’t get my head around being created to serve and liking it.’ She frowned. ‘It’s like the robots on Alpha Mensae Four. They no longer had a purpose, so they elected to terminate themselves. I just… don’t get it.’

‘You can’t really compare an AI with a Human mind,’ Ella replied. ‘Cassandra is closer because she essentially created herself, but even she has some drivers dictated by the form she was created from. You should ask her about it. Al is another thing entirely. His software was engineered for a specific set of tasks, just like… a medical robot. Those tasks are complex and require a sentient mind to perform, so he has a fully functioning mind, but he was made to want to perform them.’

‘There is a technique which produces similar effects on a Jenlay,’ Gillian commented. ‘It was banned early in the life of the Federation, even as a punishment, but it works. You place nanofibres in the brain which stimulate the pleasure centres when certain behaviours are performed. The subject quickly begins to do as they have been wired to do because they enjoy it.’

Aneka grimaced. ‘That’s…’

‘Reprehensible at best,’ Gillian said, nodding, ‘though I’d have to say that some of the techniques used to eliminate learned anti-social behaviours only differ in that they don’t involve invasive brain surgery. The ban came because a group of assassins had been created and hotwired to enjoy killing. Even then it was only because they killed a Senator.’

Aneka shook her head. The future still managed to throw up things that perplexed her. It was not that different from her time in a lot of ways, but sometimes she came across something she just found difficult to come to terms with. Then again, if the technology had been available, would it have been banned? Yes, she thought, and people would have done it anyway.

14.8.524 FSC.

There was no noticeable delay in waking up and everything was ‘optimal.’ Al was, however, at a loss to explain the odd behaviour of the last two nights. ‘I found absolutely nothing out of the ordinary,’ he said once Aneka had watched her diagnostic displays scroll past with more attention than usual. ‘All systems appear to be running at their normal efficiency. There are no bad physical sectors in your long-term storage matrix. Your brain and my computer cores are operating at full efficiency.’

‘So… if there was something wrong, it’s corrected itself. I mean, that’s what the nanothings do, right? They find problems and fix them?’

‘Yes, but they report the problems to a central coordination program. The issue and the resolution of it are reported each morning. I have access to every single problem they have fixed since you were brought online.’

Aneka stared at the inside of her eyelids for a few seconds. ‘What about the missing two hours? Anything odd there.’

‘Yes, and no.’

‘Very Zen.’

‘Well…’ If Aneka did not know better she would have said that the AI was annoyed that he did not have the answers. Actually, she did not know better. Maybe the fact that he was supposed to be her support and was failing to diagnose this problem was really irritating him.

‘Just tell me what you’ve found. We can work through this together and figure out what’s wrong. Hell, we’ve got Abraham and Delta here. Between you, me, a genius, and a robotics technician we can probably work this out.’

‘Very well. I found nothing.’

‘That’s… not much to work with.’

‘True, but it is significant. I found nothing.’

Aneka considered the statement. ‘You mean, like something was deleted?’

‘Or not recorded. Everything you experience is recorded, even your… dreams, for want of a better word.’

Aneka frowned. ‘I don’t dream? I mean, I do dream. I remember having had dreams since I woke up like this.’

‘I’m not entirely sure what a Human dream is, but I don’t think what you experience is the same. Essentially your mind is interpreting random sensory snapshots left over from the night’s garbage collection. The nightmare you had on Alpha Mensae Four was generated as a response to our radio systems picking up chatter from the robots and your memories of the lab on the Agroa Gar. The dream you had last week with Ella and the cucumber… Well, I’d rather not contemplate where that came from, but we’re getting sidetracked.’

‘Sorry. So there’s a two-hour period last night where nothing was recorded. Like I was really shut down. I guess you must have been too, or you’d have noticed I wasn’t waking up.’

‘That disturbing fact had not escaped me.’

‘Well… What the Hell could do that?’

~~~

‘The Xinti?’ Ella was looking very serious, and that was no mean feat for her face. ‘There isn’t a live Xinti anywhere in the galaxy.’

‘That we know of,’ Gillian corrected. ‘However, the coincidence would seem… extreme. Xinti, some random survivors, happen to turn up here when we are investigating a Xinti wreck and start messing with you? Unlikely.’

‘What about the ship?’ Aneka countered. ‘This is the ship that was running the programme I was on. The computer had to know about these… data-gathering protocols.’

‘We’ve been monitoring everything,’ Wallace replied. ‘There is no evidence that the AI is even barely functional. I doubt it could be affecting you.’ They had managed to drag him away from his work with Tosimna to discuss Aneka’s problem. It had not been easy, but he had come to Aneka and Ella’s cabin after the third reminder. ‘These protocols were designed to allow them to download your data in bulk?’

‘That’s what Al says. They could access my long-term storage and just grab everything, but I’d have to be offline or it’d take too long. He thinks they could take him offline by invoking a data backup routine which would offline his runtime so all his memory could be downloaded.’

‘And there’s no control functionality involved?’ Drake asked. He was there because Aneka considered the entire thing to be a safety concern and she wanted no one left out of the discussion.

‘Al says no. They can’t even initiate a connection unless I’m already offline. However, I’d like someone to go over the ship’s access records and check whether my authentication codes have been used for anything odd.’

Drake nodded, a slight smile playing over the corners of his mouth. ‘You know, the only people I know of who distrust you as much as you do is the Navy.’

Aneka shrugged. ‘Ex-military security consultant. I can recognise a security nightmare when I see one.’

‘I’ll do the security checks personally,’ the Captain said. She could tell by the way he said it that he expected to find nothing.

~~~

Drake, and Bashford, whom Aneka had briefed an hour after the meeting when he had gone on a break, were sufficiently unconcerned about her potential risk that she was given the task of checking on a data conduit which had developed a fault at the back of one of the workshops in the station. It was partially because, in a zero G environment, her augmented balance mechanisms gave her an advantage, and her augmented target tracking meant she rarely lost loose bolts.

In this case another factor came into play after she had removed the last of the securing bolts. The panel was distinctly reluctant to come free and Aneka had to brace herself against the inner wall and apply her augmented muscles to the task of getting it free. Aneka briefly wondered whether she should have her name changed to Aneka ‘Augmented’ Jansen. There was a softly audible ‘ting!’ as the panel gave, as though she had broken something, but she was sure she had removed all eight bolts. She frowned, unsure of what else she had heard as the plate freed itself.

‘Al, replay the audio for the five-second period starting one second before the plate came free.’ There was definitely something there; a distant rattle just after the plate lifted. ‘Enhance from the break. Give me a frequency analysis and all that good stuff.’

‘Really? “All that good stuff?”’

‘I’m an ex-soldier, Al. Give me a break.’

‘Of course. Enhancing the sound you appear to be interested in.’ Sure enough, the sound, something like sharp nails tapping glass as something ran, was clearer in Al’s cleaned up replay.

‘Do you have any idea what that was?’ Aneka asked. ‘Because I know what it sounds like and it’s crazy.’ She peered into the space behind the panel, and her suspicions just got worse. Several of the fibre-optic cables passing through the junction had had notches taken out of the Plastex coating them, as though something had been gnawing at them. ‘These are all going to need replacing,’ she commented.

‘Indeed. According to the schematic, that blue one is the most important, and also the worst damaged.’

It was difficult to see, but Aneka thought the fibre beneath the coating looked damaged. ‘Jansen to Bashford. Bash, I’m going to need… seven fibre patch cables down here.’

‘Seven?’ Bashford’s voice sounded surprised even over the communication channel.

‘Yeah. Uh… Is there such a thing as space rats? It looks like something’s gnawed the Plastex coating and I’m sure I heard… well, skittering.’

Now Bashford sounded resigned. ‘Not rats, no, but there are glickles.’

‘Glickles?’

‘Like rats, but they operate fine in zero gravity. If we have a colony aboard we could be in real trouble. Vashma! I hope they haven’t got onto the Agroa Gar!’

‘Will the sensors pick them up?’

‘We should be able to register the heat signatures if we tune them. Fix those cables. I’ll get Monkey and Delta to help me with the glickle hunt.’

‘Yes, boss.’ Aneka turned from the hatch and started towards the door; there were spare patch cables in the other workshop.

‘It’s odd,’ Al commented as she floated towards the hatch, ‘but we registered no abnormal heat signature behind the hatch before opening it, and it was stuck rather fast, as though something did not want it opened.’

‘Well, if they’re small…’

‘Yes. The thermal signature might not have shown against the comms hub in there.’

‘That’s a comms hub?’

‘According to the schematic. The glickle could have taken down the main data and voice connections between the Agroa Gar and the Garnet Hyde if it had kept chewing.’

‘Huh. Good thing we caught it in time then.’

~~~

The three hunters, looking tired and dirty, slouched into the mess on the Hyde. Bashford put a small, plastic box on the table. Through one transparent side, Aneka could see an animal of some kind which looked a little like a cross between a rat and an armadillo, possibly their mutant offspring with a spider. It had eight limbs, each ending in an articulated ‘hand’ with sharp claws. Its skin was covered in dense-looking platelets and it had rodent-like, very large incisors jutting out past the end of a long muzzle. There was a large burn mark on its left side, probably fatal and the reason it looked dead.

‘That’s it?’ she asked. ‘That’s a glickle? Just the one glickle at that?’

‘Be thankful,’ Drake commented. ‘Where there are two glickles, there are dozens of the little buggers.’

‘We’re pretty sure that’s it,’ Bashford said. ‘We combed both ships and the station. All we could find was this corpse. Looks like it ran into a power conduit not long after you disturbed it, Aneka.’

Tosimna was glowering at the dead alien across the table. ‘I’m glad it’s dead. Those things are a menace. A plague on the survey team who found them.’

Gillian gave her a conciliatory smile and then looked across at Aneka. ‘When they were discovered, on Glick Six I believe, someone thought they would make interesting pets. There was a big merchandising campaign and such. Then it was discovered that they love eating bio-plastics and they breed like maniacs with enough food. Their native environment kept them in check with predators and limited food supply.’

‘That was too late for several Torem stations where they had become popular with children,’ Tosimna continued. Aneka looked at the corpse and wondered how anyone could have ever considered the things cute. ‘We lost one entire station, along with several dozen people, when the things destroyed the reactor control system. After that they were eradicated, and the transportation and sale of them was banned, but they still manage to find their way onto ships and stations from time to time.’

‘Well, I’m just glad we got this sorted out today,’ Bashford said.

‘Yes,’ Gillian said, nodding. ‘It would have interrupted our shore leave.’

‘Oh, yes…’ Tosimna’s voice carried a hint of melancholy. ‘Back down to Corax tomorrow.’ She frowned at the glickle. ‘Stupid creatures can’t even be disruptive when I’d like them to be.’

~~~

Aneka was about to leave with Ella, heading back to their cabin though it was unlikely they would be sleeping immediately, when Tosimna looked up at her. It was tough to read expression on a Torem’s face, but there was something like curiosity there. ‘Aneka, you have an amazingly quiet mind. I don’t think I’ve ever caught a stray thought from you.’

‘Vashma yes!’ Shannon got in before Aneka could even start considering a response. ‘She’s awesome. The Mental Sciences department thinks it’s something to do with the nanostasis, or something else that happened while she was on the Agroa Gar. Her brain doesn’t operate on the right frequencies or something. I never did understand that psi-science stuff. I’m just glad she’s not as noisy as Ella.’

‘Hey!’ Ella huffed. ‘I try to be quiet, I’m just…’

‘Naturally very open?’ Tosimna suggested, her lips curling into a thin sort of smile. ‘I can’t understand your thoughts, but it is a little like being sat beside a fusion drive.’

‘A mistuned one,’ Shannon agreed.

‘Huh!’ Ella grunted, mock affronted. ‘Well I’m going to take my noisy mind and my quiet girlfriend, and go make noise in our cabin.’

Aneka grinned at Shannon and Tosimna, and followed Ella as she strutted out of the mess room. She said nothing until the door was closed behind them. ‘Shannon’s a genius.’

‘Shannon and I,’ Ella replied. ‘We came up with that distraction plan just in case.’

‘Clever girl. I knew there was more to you than a beautiful face and a great body.’

‘Of course there is! I have degrees in psychology and… And you were joking.’

Aneka gave her a slap on the seat of her shipsuit. ‘Yes, but not about your body. Now get moving so I can prove it.’

15.8.524 FSC.

Technically, with Drake, Gillian, and Bashford off the station, Shannon was in charge of shipboard safety and operation, and Monkey was in charge of any facilitator activities required. In practice, however, Monkey was a little unsure of himself and was deferring to Aneka a lot. Also, in practice it made little difference. Wallace was busy working on the simulation he had started with Tosimna; apparently they were very close to a working hypothesis on how the warp cores functioned and he was having to be supervised to make sure he slept. Cassandra was taking care of that, however. That left Ella doing research on the Agroa Gar, and Aneka was happy to cover her when she went over.

Thus far the Agroa Gar’s data archives had revealed more about Old Earth than it had about the Xinti. They had discovered huge amounts of data taken from the Internet. Pretty much the entirety of Wikipedia had been archived, which had given Aneka the opportunity to point Gillian at it and got her off the hook of providing insights into a lot of history and culture. She had had to point out that it was not always entirely accurate, but a good source of information. A highly detailed map had given Aneka the opportunity to show Ella where she had lived, when she had been home. She was a little surprised to discover that doing so did not hurt as much as she had expected. Finding her brother’s Facebook page was a different matter, but she had managed.

As lunchtime grew closer, Aneka heard some familiar sounds coming from a speaker and looked over Ella’s shoulder to see a couple engaged in a typical, vaguely unrealistic porn scene. ‘The stuff Kat and Dillon make is better,’ she commented.

‘You know, I got the impression from your reaction to our comedies that there just wasn’t this kind of porn around back then,’ Ella commented.

‘Oh there was plenty of porn on the Internet. Some of it was perverted and disgusting by any standard. Some of it was just enormously unrealistic, like this. People were starting to post homemade stuff which was better, I guess. At least it didn’t give people unrealistic expectations. Of course, when you do that now everyone looks like they could have been a porn star.’

‘It’s kind of hot.’

‘It’s supposed to be.’

‘Do you know how many rules we’d be breaking if we had sex in here?’

‘I probably don’t know all of them, but I can think of several.’

Ella giggled. ‘But I want you. Now.’ The redhead turned slightly. Her fingers traced over the exposed skin of Aneka’s butt.

‘We shouldn’t…’

‘No,’ the word was breathed in Aneka’s ear, ‘but we’re going to.’ The seal at the front of Aneka’s suit parted and Ella leaned down to kiss the skin revealed beneath.

Aneka felt the familiar flutter between her legs and knew that Ella was right. Why can’t I ever say no to her? But it was too late for that; Ella was peeling Aneka’s leotard back to reveal her breasts and her pointy tongue was circling a nipple. Aneka groaned and gave in, her fingers finding the closure at Ella’s throat and unsealing her suit. Ella moaned in turn as Aneka’s fingers slipped under the Plastex and found a nipple. Aneka had to admit there was something thrilling about impromptu, fumbling sex done somewhere where you should not be doing it.

Aneka was at a slight tactical advantage; Ella needed to negotiate the equipment belt Aneka was wearing to get where she wanted to go, but Ella’s suit split to the crotch immediately. The redhead’s eyes widened as Aneka found her target, and fingers filled Ella giving her no time to react before they found the spot within her that reacted so well to the right kind of pressure.

‘No fair!’ Ella gasped. ‘I can’t get to… Ah! You… Why did I teach you that?!’

Aneka pushed her girlfriend up against one of the consoles, eliciting a squeal, and leaned over her, fingers still pressing rhythmically. ‘Because you love it,’ she whispered. Then she was dropping to her knees, her free hand pushing Ella up so that only her toes touched the deck. It gave Aneka free rein to do whatever she wished. Along with the pumping fingers, she applied tongue to clitoris. The combination always worked well with Ella; she gave up trying to protest when all she could really do was pant, and Aneka was left with the slightly surreal experience of eating her girlfriend with stereophonic porn sounds playing from around Ella’s hips. Ella could apparently hear them too; her hands pressed Aneka’s face harder against her sex, then stiffened, and then Ella was coming, hard, just as the girl in the video did. Almost as loudly too.

‘Al? Is anyone else on the ship?’ Aneka asked silently as she set up a slow recovery rhythm. A few seconds of this and she could speed up, pushing Ella over again with even less difficulty. You could keep the girl coming until she passed out if you wanted.

‘Doctor Wallace and Cassandra are in the station,’ Al responded. Ella started whimpering as she realised Aneka was not going to stop. ‘Neither can hear Ella, I checked with Cassandra. Monkey and Delta are currently in their cabin on the Garnet Hyde, almost certainly engaging in the same sort of behaviour.’

‘You checked with Cassandra?’

‘She finds this kind of activity particularly fascinating.’

‘Uh-huh.’ Knowing that Cassandra was quite aware of what was going on did not interrupt what Aneka’s tongue and fingers were currently doing, and the resulting effect on Ella was starting to show in the steady stream of ‘Oh!’ sounds coming from the redhead.

‘I did wish to bring your attention to the emission the radio system picked up just after you pinned Ella to the console,’ Al said. ‘A burst of transmission activity approximately zero-point-seven seconds in length. I was unable to act fast enough to capture the full data packet.’

Aneka did her best not to freeze; better not to get Ella concerned unless she needed to be. ‘Xinti?’ Xinti speech was transmitted as a condensed, high-speed data burst which appeared as radio static to most people.

‘I don’t believe so, but I was unable to capture all of it. The data appears encrypted, and not by an encryption technique the Xinti used.’

‘Damn it, Al… I haven’t even got off yet.’

‘I’m not stopping you. Though I would point out that Ella is generally quite incapable after her third orgasm.’

‘She’s on her third?’

‘You didn’t give her a break after the second.’

Thinking she needed to pay attention more during sex, Aneka allowed Ella to come down off her high and then slid her fingers out and stepped back. Ella was lying bent over the console, her chest heaving, but she managed to look up and pout as Aneka began resealing her suit. ‘Al detected some weird radio noise, love. Sorry, but we need to go over to the station and check the sensor logs.’ Ella giggled, weakly, but she giggled. ‘What?’

‘You’ve never… done it in… zero G, right?’

Aneka shook her head slowly. Damn redhead is going to kill me.

‘That’s highly unlikely,’ Al supplied. ‘Your chassis is well up to handling more or less anything Ella can throw at it.’

Aneka started for the flight deck’s door. ‘That’s good to know at least.’

~~~

The sensor logging system had recorded nothing specific about a radio burst, but the system kept twenty-four hours of buffered raw data as well as the processed and analysed stuff, so Aneka watched over Ella’s shoulder as the scientist pulled the data for the time period Al said the burst had occurred in and ran it through the spectrum analysis software. Ella was looking pretty focussed, even though her shipsuit was still open all the way down the front.

‘Give her a challenge and she’s like that,’ Al said.

‘True, but if she doesn’t find anything dangerous she’s still going to want retribution for earlier.’

‘Get in first. I’m sure you’ll enjoy yourself, but the effect she is actually referring to is the variation in blood pressure the lack of gravity causes. I believe the term is “head rush.”’

‘Huh, some people get off from hanging upside down when they come.’

‘The same principle. I believe strangling someone during sex has a similar augmenting effect.’

Aneka avoided grimacing. ‘The only time I’ll choke someone is when I intend for them to die during it. Point taken, however, since I don’t have the same physiology, she’ll get more out of this than I will.’

‘There,’ Ella said, breaking the reverie. ‘Does that look like what Al spotted?’

Pulling forward with one hand, Aneka slipped the other down the front of Ella’s suit, and looked at the complex, 3D graph displayed on the screen. Frequency distribution on one axis, time and amplitude on the others, and it matched the image Al was displaying within visible limits. Aneka gave Ella’s right nipple a firm squeeze. ‘That’s it. Any idea what it is?’

‘Ah! Ohhh… that is really distracting.’ Ella did not, however, do anything to stop Aneka from continuing to grope her. ‘The computer’s running comparison algorithms on the pattern. That could take a while…’

‘Al, can you bang through this search faster?’ Aneka asked.

‘I could, but the ship’s systems won’t take more than a few minutes and Ella obviously wants to continue your earlier activities.’

‘Al thinks we should fuck while we wait,’ Aneka told Ella, giving her nipple another squeeze.

‘Al, Ah! Does does he?’

Aneka started to peel Ella’s suit open. ‘Yes. I, obviously, think it’s a safety risk.’

Twisting in space, Ella reached for the buckle of Aneka’s belt; she was not going to get caught out this time. ‘That doesn’t seem to be stopping you from following his suggestion.’

‘I must be getting impulsive tendencies from you.’

Unsealing Aneka’s suit, Ella said, ‘Good, I was hoping you would.’

~~~

‘The computer couldn’t identify it at all?’ Monkey asked.

‘Nothing in its database matched the pattern,’ Ella replied around a mouthful of food. ‘Probably just some random noise in the electronics around the flight deck.’

‘But Al’s looking it over in case he can make anything of it,’ Aneka added.

‘Al’s computational power is quite remarkable,’ Cassandra commented. ‘If there is something to find, I’m sure he will.’ She was not eating, but then neither was Aneka.

‘Xinti quantum computers,’ Wallace said. ‘Incredible pieces of technology. The only things more complex we know of are the units they ran their own minds on.’

‘Like the one I’m running on,’ Aneka replied.

‘Indeed. It’s probable that some piece of the ship’s communications equipment woke up briefly. A self-test perhaps.’

‘But the computer’s still asleep?’

‘There has been no sign of unusual activity in any of the systems we’re monitoring. When you mentioned the noise burst, I checked. All quiet.’

Aneka nodded. ‘It’s possible I’m being a little paranoid.’

‘Paranoia is quite normal under the circumstances,’ Cassandra interjected matter-of-factly.

‘Uh-huh,’ Ella agreed. ‘I think I’d be a little paranoid, under the circumstances.’

Aneka laughed. ‘I can’t imagine you being paranoid about anything.’ Which was something of a lie: Ella had her insecurities and Aneka knew it.

‘Just to be safe,’ Wallace said, ‘I’ll have the station’s computer run a full diagnostic sweep of the Agroa Gar’s systems. If there’s anything strange going on, I’m sure we’ll find it.’

‘I’ll do the same with the Hyde,’ Shannon added. ‘Better safe than sorry. If I let the ship break, Drake will have my hide.’ She grinned. ‘It’s probably the only thing I couldn’t get out of with sex.’

16.8.524 FSC.

Ella was watching Internet porn again. She said it was psychology research, getting inside the mind of Old Earth culture, but Aneka was pretty sure she was just hoping for a replay of the day before.

That said, she did seem to be analysing what she was seeing. ‘I see what you mean about disgusting and perverted, sort of. I mean, there’s a couple of things here I wouldn’t try. My theory is that since sex was more taboo, it lends itself to extremes.’

Aneka gave a slight shrug. ‘Maybe. Like I said, there were more euphemisms for it back then. People considered sex as something private. You lot think of it as an everyday topic.’

‘It is,’ Ella replied, ‘and it’s private. I think that’s how it should be.’

‘Not that I’m disagreeing, but you would say that, this is your society.’

‘That’s a valid point… Why would any woman willingly get fucked by a donkey?’

‘Money,’ Aneka responded almost immediately. ‘Though they do say one of the old Russian tsarinas used to keep a stable of stallions for that purpose. I think it was made up by her enemies, but you never know. People have weird tastes.’

Ella grimaced. ‘And what’s with this “bukkake” thing? I mean, I’m not averse to a facial, but…’

‘It’s Japanese,’ Aneka responded as though that explained everything. ‘If you want to know where it started, look it up on Wikipedia.’

‘Oo! I’d forgotten about that.’ The red-headed psychologist was almost gleeful as she switched to another window and typed.

Aneka giggled. ‘Some people thought that site was going to replace people’s memories. Why bother knowing anything when you could just look it up on Wikipedia?’

Ella’s eyes were scanning an article and she sounded a little distracted as she spoke. ‘We prize both personal knowledge and the ability to research information effectively. It’s all right to have to look things up, but it’s better if you take it in and remember it once you have. Especially when it’s one of your subjects of interest… You know, this is really interesting. I can see the humiliation aspect, especially in the original material from Japan. I can also see what this commentator says about it being a sort of “party sex” atmosphere. I’ll have to get Gillian to watch this stuff.’

‘I do hope that the input of Old Earth into Federation culture is not going to consist of old-style porn.’

‘Oh no,’ Ella replied, shaking her head for emphasis. ‘Gillian was talking about compiling some music lists to merchandise through the university’s Arts department. Monkey’s been playing practically nothing else since he heard it. Good thing Delta seems to like it too.’

‘Some of the lyrics are a bit… violent,’ Aneka commented.

‘I’ve heard some of them. The reason we don’t have those “action movies” you go on about is that they just aren’t popular. People don’t want to see other people gunned down by the hero. The music though, well even some of the violent stuff, just sounds good.’

Aneka chuckled. ‘Some of the European symphonic rock stuff should be a hit.’

‘Uh-huh…’ Ella pointed to the screen. ‘Aneka, do you think you could do that to me?’ Shaking her head and grinning, Aneka wandered over to find out what ‘that’ was. Yeah, Ella was looking for a replay before their bosses got back.

It was interrupted by Shannon, however. ‘Aneka, Ella, we have a problem. Can you get back to the Hyde, now? I’ve already summoned everyone else.’

‘On our way,’ Aneka replied.

Ella pouted, but started for the door. ‘You’re not getting out of that. This is just a rain check.’

Aneka sighed.

~~~

‘Could Al break Drake’s access codes to the ship?’ Shannon asked as soon as everyone was gathered in the mess.

‘I probably could,’ Al said, ‘but I have not.’

‘He says yes, but he hasn’t,’ Aneka relayed. Her eyes narrowed. ‘Why?’

‘According to the logs, Drake accessed the Agroa Gar data files last night,’ Shannon replied. ‘Except he’s not here and it was a local access made from the terminal in our cabin.’

‘I’d have thought you’d have noticed if someone was in there.’

‘I spent the night with Monkey and Delta.’ Not even a hint of embarrassment from Shannon, though Delta went a little pink. Monkey looked smug. ‘You have been having those odd sleep things…’

‘If Aneka had snuck out in the middle of the night I’d have noticed,’ Ella stated flatly. ‘Those bunks aren’t big; I sleep cuddled up to her back.’

‘If we are relatively sure that Aneka and Al are not responsible,’ Wallace put in, ‘we need to find out who is.’

‘Logically,’ Cassandra said, her voice quite calm, ‘I am the only other person capable of duplicating the codes required.’

‘Anyone could with the right equipment,’ Delta replied, ‘and I’m the newcomer to the team…’

‘Except I’d have noticed if you’d done it,’ Shannon said before Monkey could get in. ‘I think you were the middle of a train when the access was made. No, I think there’s something else going on.’ She looked at Aneka, apparently expecting her to think of something.

‘Uh… Let’s go look at the cabin then. Maybe there’s something there that’ll provide a clue… Um, I don’t suppose anyone’s got some fine powder, like talc?’

‘I believe I can get something fabricated,’ Wallace said. ‘Why?’

~~~

Sure enough, the fine, white powder Wallace had provided highlighted a lot of fingerprints on the room’s console. Al set about comparing them to the biomorphic data in the ship’s databases as soon as they were revealed.

‘Fascinating,’ Wallace said. ‘Of course, these days we use a fluorescence scanner to detect the proteins and generally just perform a DNA analysis. This was how the Peacekeepers worked in your time?’

‘They were called police,’ Aneka replied, ‘and this was done by forensics officers, and we did have DNA tests, but this was the first port of call. Fingerprints are unique, and easier to find than DNA.’

‘Unfortunately,’ Al said, ‘these fingerprints belong to Drake and Shannon. However, I believe I know why. The access was made through this terminal, but via a direct connection to one of the data ports. I only need your access codes to get that data.’

‘A direct access? Someone plugged in… Doesn’t that mean Cassandra…?’

‘Cassandra would have left traces in the access logs, even if she had used Drake’s codes. Her programming would not allow it to be otherwise. We have no direct data port. Unless someone here is a cyborg, we have an intruder.’

Aneka’s eyes scanned the room. ‘Al says that whoever did this connected straight into the terminal through a data port. He says it wasn’t Cassandra so we have…’ She stopped as she noticed sparks of blue light, markers from her ultraviolet overlay, from the floor under one of the air-conditioning vents. Walking over, she bent down and swiped at them with her fingers.’

‘What’s that?’ Shannon asked, walking over.

Aneka looked at the specks of metal on her fingertips. ‘Looks like metal shavings…’ She looked up at the vent, seeing the scratch marks around the screws highlighted by her edge-recognition software. ‘Al thinks we have an intruder. And given that something came through that vent, and that vent is too small for a Human, I’d have to say we have a really small intruder.’ She looked around at the others. ‘A hyper-intelligent glickle?’

~~~

It had taken the combined efforts of Wallace and Shannon doing the recalibrations and adjustments, and Delta and Monkey realigning array heads, but they had got the station sensors which had been tuned to scan the Agroa Gar to work over the Garnet Hyde instead. That had taken almost an hour, and then it had taken another ten minutes for the anomaly to show up: a small signal, unnoticeable without the enhanced science array, but definitely there. Now Aneka was down in the ship’s hold with Monkey’s blaster pistol.

There were two reasons why she was doing it. First, she could operate in the unpressurised section where the blip was without a suit. Second, they were unsure of exactly what they were facing, and her body was better suited to taking damage than anyone else’s. And she was using Monkey’s pistol, as she had told Delta, because her own blaster might blow a hole in the hull, and would certainly obliterate whatever was down there before they figured out what it was. Thankfully, as far as she was concerned, the weapon came with sights designed to operate with a HUD, so she could patch it through her normal targeting system. Currently she had it set to stun, essentially making it a ranged Taser.

‘Anything?’ Ella’s voice sounded worried even over the radio channel.

‘Not yet,’ Aneka replied. ‘All I see are the cargo containers we brought up last time.’

‘The signal is still there,’ Shannon said. ‘Around five metres ahead of you.’

Aneka moved around the crates that were blocking her path. Turning back towards where her in-vision display from the ship’s sensors was indicating the blip was, she immediately saw the dark hole in the side of one of the boxes. ‘There’s a panel missing from the exterior of one crate. Looks like someone arranged for us to bring our intruder aboard last shore leave.’

‘That sounds exceptionally well organised,’ Wallace commented. ‘Someone after information on the Xinti-tech?’

‘Seems logic-’ Aneka cut off as something shifted in the opening in the crate. As her high-speed mind slowed the action down, she had time to see a metallic object, roughly disc-shaped, with at least two limbs. Then there were other messages flashing across her vision as a laser beam hit her right cheek. Laser weapon impact. Dermal layer damaged. She smelled burning and lifted her gun, pulling the trigger as she registered the disk in the sighting window. Sparks danced across the metal skin of the small robot and its limbs twitched violently before going still.

‘Aneka?!’ Ella sounded slightly frantic.

‘I’m okay. I found our intruder and it was armed. I’ve got a laser burn for my efforts, but nothing bad.’ Stepping forwards, she lifted the robot out of the hole. ‘It’s a robot, a small one. Six limbs and some sort of ducted fan propulsion, for zero G I guess. I think I shorted it out or something with the blaster.’

‘Its electronics were probably not shielded,’ Al commented. ‘There isn’t much mass there to put shielding into.’

‘Bring it back,’ Wallace said. ‘Cassandra, Delta, and I can dissect it. Perhaps we can recover something, or find a clue to its origin.’

Aneka nodded, and dropped to one knee to look into the hole in the crate. ‘On my way, but we may have more problems. There’s room for several of these things in this crate.’

‘Nothing else is showing up on the sensors,’ Shannon replied.

‘That may be because we’re looking in the wrong place.’

‘I’ll get started realigning the arrays,’ Monkey said as Aneka started back towards the airlock.

~~~

Delta was trying hard not to stare at Aneka’s cheek. The beam had cut over her cheekbone, revealing some of the mesh beneath the artificial, semi-organic skin. Normally Aneka looked and acted entirely Human, and she was fairly sure that Delta had stopped thinking of her as anything else. Now she was faced with the reality that Aneka was basically a robot, albeit one significantly more sophisticated than the one being disassembled in one of the Hyde’s labs. Thankfully, the looks Delta was giving her suggested curiosity rather than abhorrence.

‘The device itself appears to be custom-built,’ Cassandra commented. She had been going through the ship’s databases by remote. ‘It corresponds to no commercially available model of robot. Unfortunately all the components are off-the-shelf. You could find them in practically any hobby electronics catalogue. They are highly compact, expensive, but not uncommon.’

‘It’s been designed for spying,’ Wallace added. ‘Infiltration even. I’d estimate the cells are good for a month. It has a short-range, burst radio transceiver and a lot of data storage. I’m fairly positive that it cannot have reported anything it has found to its owner.’

Aneka gave a grunt and tapped the attention button on the console beside her. ‘Jansen to Patton. Shannon, lock down the long-range communications system. Shut it down if you have to.’

‘On it. I’ll need to leave a channel open for the shuttle. They’re due back in the next hour.’

‘Okay, but put a monitor on it. If it’s used by anyone, we want to know.’ She frowned at the bits of robot. ‘When we’ve got them all we’ll send the specs to Winter. Maybe she’s heard of something like this before.’

‘You seem to be on very good terms with the head of Federation Security,’ Wallace commented. Delta was wide-eyed.

‘For whatever reason, she seems to be very interested in me. When it comes to things like this, that’s useful.’

Wallace nodded. ‘I’m going to see what I can salvage from this thing’s memory. I suggest you start looking for its friends.’

‘Yeah,’ Aneka said pushing away from the desk she was leaning against, ‘but this time I’m going to get a bigger gun.’

~~~

Aneka actually stood guard over Monkey and Delta while they realigned the arrays again, Bessie in her hands. The huge blaster was set to its non-lethal setting, but that was significantly more powerful than the one Monkey’s blaster had. Monkey’s weapon fired highly accelerated electrons, simply reducing the power to produce the Taser effect. Bessie normally fired anti-protons, requiring a larger acceleration field to do it; switching that over to accelerating an electron stream produced quite a charge.

The result of all that hard work had, however, been a complete lack of any sign of anything out of the ordinary and a ‘War Council’ had been set up in the mess as soon as the shuttle was back aboard the Hyde.

‘I believe,’ Wallace was saying, ‘that any remaining robots have gone into a low-power, stealth mode. This assumes that there are other robots, but it does seem likely. A solitary unit would not need the communications package.’

‘So we won’t be able to spot them unless they power up?’ Aneka asked.

‘Unless we do it visually,’ Drake replied, ‘and they could be in places we would find very hard to get to.’

‘What about the inspection drones?’ Delta said. Everyone looked at her. ‘We have those two inspection units to do studies of the conduits on the Xinti ship, yeah? They’re remote-piloted, but we could fly them down through the air ducts and cable conduits. They have cameras and lidar…’

Aneka smirked at her. ‘And you said you weren’t cut out for this job.’

‘She did?’ Monkey sounded a little surprised.

‘So that was two things I was wrong about, I guess,’ Delta admitted. ‘I can have the drones ready in an hour. Monkey can fly the second one.’

‘Aneka and I will do a search through the station,’ Bashford added. ‘We won’t have time to do the Agroa Gar…’

‘We can keep going tonight,’ Delta interrupted.

‘Flying those drones in tight confines is tiring,’ Bashford told her. ‘I agree that there’s some urgency in this, but if you keep going at it without rest you’ll miss things.’

‘Bash is right,’ Aneka stated flatly. She looked at Drake. ‘Can we set the sensor systems to keep scanning and alert us if these things show their faces?’

‘Of course.’

Bashford nodded. ‘That’s the plan then. We work while we can and set the sensors up to watch while we sleep.’

‘Wouldn’t it be faster if we all searched?’ Ella asked.

‘Those things are armed, Ella,’ Aneka said. ‘I don’t want Bash going in there, but I know I can’t stop him. My face will be back to normal in an hour. You’d need surgery, if it didn’t kill you.’

‘Yeah… I guess.’ Aneka could tell she was not pleased, but that was how it was going to be. The risk was unquantifiable, but it applied to all of them, and putting someone else in the direct line of fire was not an option.

17.8.524 FSC.

Aneka’s eyes flicked open, the dark room not so dark to her eyes, but the usual display of diagnostics was not there. Instead there was a flashing message which said, System interrupt. Diagnostic cycle incomplete.

‘I am receiving a communication request,’ Al said into the silence.

‘So? Hang on, the comm system is still shut down.’

‘This is coming in through a short-range signal.’ There was an odd sort of strain in his voice. ‘Aneka, it’s using Xinti protocols and a Xinti civilian-grade encryption standard.’

Aneka’s mind ran over the possibilities, but it came down to only one. ‘The ship’s awake. Put it through. I want to know what’s going on.’

‘Initiating connection…’

Nothing seemed to change, but then the voice spoke. ‘I realise that you may not trust me, but the situation has moved to the point where we need each other’s help.’ It was female and speaking English with no accent, and it seemed to be coming from inside the room rather than inside Aneka’s head. She opened her eyes and found herself looking at a pair of golden legs.

Bolting upright was probably not a smart move. Ella groaned, her eyes flickering open. ‘Aneka? What’s wrong? Did the sensors detect something?’

Aneka was staring at the figure in the room with them. She was a trim, naked woman with fairly large breasts and honey-blonde hair which fell to her neck. The one ‘imperfection’ was a lack of defined genitalia. That and that she was gold. Her skin was metallic gold, her featureless eyeballs were silver. ‘I elected to take a Human form to make you more comfortable,’ the woman said. Aneka looked at her. ‘We do not have time for this.’

‘Aneka?’ Ella looked between Aneka and where Aneka was looking. ‘What’s going on?’

‘You don’t see that?’ Aneka asked, pointing at the figure. ‘Hear it?’

‘I’m an image projected onto your vision field,’ the woman told her. ‘My voice appears to come from the image, but it is patched through your senses. It might be unwise to…’

‘I’m seeing a woman with gold skin and silver eyes standing beside the table,’ Aneka said, ignoring the projection. ‘I think it’s the computer from the Agroa Gar.’

‘That is correct,’ the golden woman said. ‘A situation has arisen which…’

‘It’s talking to you?!’ Ella butted in, unable to hear that she was interrupting. She sounded excited rather than alarmed.

Aneka sighed. ‘Ella, the computer which we thought was entirely inactive has made contact with me, was probably the one messing with my head a couple of days ago, and has obviously been hiding the fact that it’s fully functional. Get Bashford and Drake down here. I want guns pointed at my head.’

‘There is no need for that,’ the computer said, ‘and no time. We have to…’

‘Ella…’ Aneka growled.

The golden woman’s face creased into a frown. ‘Your internal communications system is down. You can’t contact them, even if you wanted to. Now will you listen to me?’

‘Internal comms is down,’ Ella said, her voice now carrying a hint of anxiety. ‘Did she…?’

Aneka shook her head, eyes on the computer. ‘No… No, I don’t think she did it. All right, what’s going on?’

‘You are aware of the robots that have been infiltrating this facility. I thought that they were yours at first, but they went out of their way to avoid any of you. When you almost found one of them they provided that animal corpse to distract you. Then you destroyed one and the others were alerted. They reactivated thirty minutes ago…’

‘Our sensors should have picked them up,’ Aneka interrupted.

‘One of them was in position to disable your internal communications at a moment’s notice. With that down, your computer was unable to signal the one you call Drake. I have disabled two of the devices that were attempting to access my core. There are three more. One is attempting to access my systems through a different route, one is hacking the computers on the bridging station, and one is in your engineering section. I believe the last one’s intent is not benign.’

‘Fuck!’

‘Aneka?’ Ella asked. She was looking confused and scared.

‘Ella, get your suit and helmet on and go wake the others. The spy robots are attempting to sabotage the ship. I’m going down to the drive room to try to stop that, but they need to get into the station and the Agroa Gar to stop the other two.’ She stabbed an index finger at the golden woman. ‘You. You’re talking to me via a radio connection, so you can at least audio link to the others. You have to guide them to where the robots are.’

‘I connected to you because you were designed as an observation platform for the Xinti. I don’t trust…’

‘Well I do and I can’t do everything alone. Now do it!’

‘Of course, Yrimlos.’

Aneka paused with her hand halfway to her leotard. ‘What did you call me?’

‘Yrimlos. It means…’

‘God’s eyes?’

‘Yes. It was the name given to you when you were uplifted.’ There was a tiny pause during which Aneka gritted her teeth and thought of a response. ‘I am sorry that I had to covertly access your memory to discover what had happened to me. Perhaps I should have been more open.’

The apology was unexpected and Aneka’s anger at being ‘uplifted’ died a little. The ship had been offline for a thousand years, just like she had, and it had awoken into an entirely different world. Its crew, the race who had built it, were all dead, just as Aneka’s world was long dead. ‘No, well yes, but I can understand why you did it.’

The golden woman’s head turned, observing that Ella had got her helmet on. ‘Good morning, Miss Narrows. You should be able to hear me now, and… initiating link to head’s up display… see me.’

‘Oh… wow,’ Ella breathed. Aneka saw her frown through the faceplate. ‘You look Jenlay.’

‘I can look like a typical Xinti if you wish, but I felt this more appropriate. Could we make some haste? The device attacking my core is approximately three minutes from breaching an access panel.’

‘What about the one in engineering?’ Aneka asked.

‘I am unable to get sufficiently accurate data. Hurry.’

~~~

‘I assume we’re going to discuss this at some point, Aneka?’ Gillian’s voice said over the relayed communications link the Agroa Gar had put together.

‘Right after we’ve stopped ourselves getting blown up. What’s the situation with communications?’ Getting into the engineering section was proving to be harder than she had expected. Al was currently trying to hack his way into the door controls.

‘All down.’ Drake’s voice. ‘It seems we’ve discovered what that ’bot was doing using my codes. There’s a virus in the system which has locked us out of just about everything. Abraham is trying to get into it, but it’s slow going.’

‘That explains why this door won’t open then. Why haven’t they just used the computer to make the ship go boom?’

‘The safety protocols on the reactor and the drives are not that easy to override. Most of them are hardwired into the control systems. I’d imagine that’s why the thing is in there.’

‘Swell. How are the others doing?’

‘We’ve made it into the station,’ Bashford cut in. ‘Monkey and I are trying to get past the lock into the Agroa Gar. Delta and Cassandra are dealing with the unit in the computer core here.’

‘Cassandra is?’ Aneka was a little surprised.

‘I may not be a combat model, Aneka,’ Cassandra said calmly, ‘but I have above average reflexes and a relatively resilient frame, compared to a Jenlay anyway.’

‘She can handle herself,’ Al commented, ‘and done.’ The engine room door, a heavy thing designed to contain a reactor failure if possible, slid aside.

‘That’s Al’s voice?’ That was Ella.

‘You heard that? I didn’t know the ship was broadcasting everyone’s chatter.’

‘Yes, we did,’ Ella replied. ‘He sounds kind of sexy.’

‘Yes he does,’ Cassandra agreed.

‘Could we focus on the impending doom?’ Aneka suggested. Drawing her pistol, she moved into the room.

‘I am sorry, Aneka,’ Cassandra replied. ‘I shall refrain from describing your AI as sexy until after we are all safe.’

Ella was giggling, Aneka could tell, even though she could not hear it. Levity is a great tension breaker. The room was abnormally quiet, but Aneka could hear the ultrasonic whine of plasma flowing through a magnetic field behind the bulkhead directly across from her. The warp core and fusion drives were supposed to be powered down, of course, but the room still seemed eerily quiet. Senses on full alert and her attention divided across what she could see directly and what her gun-camera showed as she swept it around the room.

‘I’m not seeing the robot. Where would it need to go to disable the safeguards?’

‘Check the panels on the left wall as you go in,’ Shannon said. ‘High up, probably.’

Aneka started towards the panels Shannon had suggested and then stopped. ‘Uh, if I shoot this thing, am I going to do its job for it?’

‘Damn!’ Shannon had apparently not considered that either. ‘The circuits aren’t exactly delicate, but…’

‘Bessie puts out a lot of power. I guess I’m doing this the hard way.’ Putting her pistol in its holster, she produced a bolt driver from her belt and began undoing the retaining screws from the first of the upper panels on the wall. With the bolts released she stepped back, letting the weight of the panel do the rest.

Something silver and crablike jumped straight at her face. Her hand came up, batting it aside, and it bounced off the wall, regaining its footing with far more nimbleness than she would have given it credit for. She saw it turn, recognised what it was doing, and rolled to the right as a laser beam cracked through the air, scoring the metal behind where she had been standing. Her right hand swung up, palm outward towards the robot, and a pulse of energy slammed it against the wall hard.

One of its legs was not working, but it was still turning to try again. Pulling her blaster, Aneka snapped off a shot. Sparks arced across the robot’s metal shell and it collapsed. There was the unmistakeable smell of overheated circuitry and ozone.

‘Aneka?’ It was Ella, sounding concerned.

‘I’m fine, it’s not. You better get Shannon down here to see whether this thing did any damage before I got to it.’

‘I’m on my way,’ Shannon cut in.

‘I’ll wait for you, just in case.’ Aneka’s eyes fell on the dead robot: so small, but the cause of so much trouble. They were out of communication, and locked out of all their major systems. Well, things were probably not going to get any worse.

Part Two: Down The Rabbit Hole

FScV Garnet Hyde, in Orbit of Corax, Joval System, 18.8.524 FSC.

‘Communications are still out,’ Drake was saying. ‘The reactor is stable, thank Vashma for that, but the drives are all offline and the docking systems are locked solid. Now that we have the airlocks open, we can’t get them closed, and we can’t be sure of the emergency systems in the cabins, so everyone is to wear a shipsuit at all times and have their helmet nearby.’ He glanced at Aneka. ‘Except Aneka, of course.’

Aneka glanced at the other cybernetic member of the crew. ‘What about Cassandra?’

‘My chassis was not designed with vacuum in mind,’ the android replied. ‘Exposed to space I would suffer damage. I have no need for oxygen, of course, but I would suffer greatly if we decompress.’

‘On the plus side,’ Bashford said, ‘we got all the robots nailed and Gillian and Ella have a new friend.’

The wall screen was currently showing the golden features of the Agroa Gar’s computer avatar, head and shoulders only. Al had managed to patch the video connection through via a peer-to-peer connection. Isolated pockets of technology were working, but the vast majority of the Garnet Hyde was currently dead in the water.

‘Assuming you would trust me to do so,’ the computer said, ‘I am afraid that I would be of very limited use in correcting your problems. The protocols and systems you use are foreign to me. I am… I was a science vessel.’

‘The Xinti made extensive use of cyber-warfare,’ Monkey said, frowning. ‘They got very good at hacking our systems during the war.’

‘Quite possibly, Mister Gibbons, but I was lost many years before that conflict happened. If you were still using the protocols used in Yrimlos’ time I might have been of some help…’

‘Don’t call me that,’ Aneka said. It came across a little more harshly than she intended. ‘I’m Aneka. What do we call you?’

‘I am Agroa Gar.’

‘Far too long. Aggy, perhaps.’

The image bowed her head. ‘As you wish, Aneka.’

Aneka frowned. ‘You’ve got the whole “do as the pseudo-Xinti says” thing going, don’t you?’

‘While I can understand your misgivings, under the circumstances, my systems recognise you as a Xinti, and my programming places the wishes of a Xinti above my own.’ She raised a hand to forestall any reply. ‘However, “Aggy” is not an unpleasant name. It does not mean anything derogatory in Xinti, and it sounds… friendly.’

‘Pleasantries aside,’ Drake cut in, ‘we have a couple of priorities. I’m taking Bash and Aneka to try to stabilise the ship and close those airlocks. Abraham and Cassandra will be trying to fix the ship’s computers. Shannon, Monkey, and Delta will be trying to get everything else stable.’

‘What about me and Gillian?’ Ella asked.

‘Talk to Aggy. We all know you want to and, to be frank, we need to know we can trust her once we have everything working.’ He looked up at the screen. ‘No offence.’

‘None taken, Captain Drake,’ Aggy replied. ‘I consider your stratagem most wise, in fact.’

‘Huh, well, thank you. All right, people, let’s move. This mess isn’t going to clean itself up.’

~~~

Abraham Wallace looked as tired as any of the people who had been doing manual work all morning. He sat slumped at the table in the mess, picking at some food Gillian and Ella had prepared, and drinking a lot of coffee.

‘The virus,’ he said, ‘has done a lot of damage. Entire sections of the ship’s core programs have been wiped. I’m having to piece together what I can and program makeshift control software from scratch to replace what I can’t find.’

‘That doesn’t sound good,’ Aneka commented.

‘No,’ Drake agreed, ‘it’s not.’

‘It isn’t all bad,’ Wallace went on. ‘The sensor system software was disabled, but not damaged. We can now see, which at least means we can assess the situation better. Internal communications are back up, but spotty. Without the computer, person-to-person calls are unavailable, but you can broadcast.’

‘Good,’ Drake commented. ‘Signals out to the far end of the station were getting a bit weak.’

Wallace nodded. ‘I doubt I can get everything back online without the external backups, but I’m hoping I can have the external comms back up enough to call for help sometime tomorrow.’

‘Can’t we just send some sort of distress signal?’ Aneka asked. ‘Or patch into the ship’s radio manually and send basic voice?’

‘The distress beacon is fried,’ Monkey replied. ‘Looks like a laser was used on it.’

‘And if we sent normal audio,’ Wallace added, ‘no one would hear it. I’m afraid this is one case where technology is our undoing. Analogue signals are no longer used, so no one has the equipment to listen for them.’

‘Huh,’ Aneka grunted. ‘Here I am in the future, wishing I had a walkie-talkie.’

~~~

‘Aneka?’ The golden shape of Aggy appeared in the corner of Aneka’s vision along with the voice in her ears. Aneka was going over the primary structural members of the station with a hand scanner, but she could spare the computer some attention.

‘Aggy. What can I do for you? You obviously want to talk privately.’

‘How can you tell?’

‘You’re speaking Xinti.’

‘Ah. Yes. I wanted to ask… if it was true.’

‘If what was true?’

‘That all the Xinti are dead.’

‘I don’t know. I think it’s likely. The Herosians have been hunting them down for centuries. They claim that there are still some alive, but I think that’s just to let them hit Xinti sites without mercy whenever one is discovered.’

‘Uplifting the Herosians was considered an error. The reason your programme was initiated was to avoid the mistakes of the Herosian project.’

‘We worked out that you, uh, uplifted the Herosians and Humans. The crashed ship on Old Earth with drive technology they could understand back then… What did you actually do with the Herosians?’

‘A ship with a functional warp engine was left on one of their moons. They discovered it and used it to manufacture their own warp drives. The results were… horrible. An entire sentient race was wiped out during the first years of their expansion.’

‘So I was uplifted to see if Humans were going to do the same kind of thing?’

‘Yes, though the view was, given our preliminary studies, that the Human race was less likely to carry out racial genocide simply to take one planet.’

Aneka laughed. ‘I’m not sure I have such a high opinion of my fellow man.’

‘Why not? They seem to have turned out well.’

It was a valid point. The Jenlay were a largely peaceful people. There had not been any wars for centuries. They lived more or less happily with two other species, but… ‘There’s no pressure for resources, and there’s always room to expand without attacking their neighbours.’

‘True, but that could have been said about the Herosians. They still killed an entire planet just to get the land.’ She paused and then added, ‘When I first awoke I sent a distress signal to my home base, but there will be no one there to receive it.’

‘I’m sorry, Aggy.’ To her surprise, Aneka realised that she meant it.

~~~

It was early evening and the crew were still trying to get the station in some sort of working shape when Wallace’s voice came from the speakers and through their headsets, and in Aneka’s case her internal radio. ‘Everyone, the sensors are picking up some unusual electromagnetic effects outside the ship. I’m not entirely sure what to make of it.’

Drake answered from somewhere. He was not on the flight deck, Aneka knew that; they had still not managed to bypass the security fail-safes which were failing to keep them safe. ‘Can you tell where it’s coming from? The Agroa Gar?’

‘It is not anything I am doing,’ Aggy chimed in.

‘Not the Agroa Gar, no,’ Wallace replied. ‘In fact… I can’t isolate a source. The signal appears to be some form of long-range sensor, I think, but I’m not able to…’

His voice cut off into a screech of static and Aneka pushed herself down the corridor towards the Garnet Hyde, unsure of why she was moving, but sure that she needed to be with everyone else. Something was very wrong.

Wallace’s voice cut back in as she negotiated the half-open airlock door. ‘That was a massive spike in electromagnetic activity. Huge! Cassandra is…’

‘Cassandra?’ Al’s voice sounded only in Aneka’s head, but he sounded worried.

‘The pulse caused a reboot in her core processors. She appears to be recovering.’ Aneka thought she felt a sense of relief from her other half though his ‘feelings’ had never crossed over before. ‘We’ve lost external visual sensors and I’m not sure what state the communications are in. Broadband electromagnetic sensors are… fluctuating. Gravimetric sensors…’ His voice cut off and Aneka wondered whether the comms had cut out again.

‘Doc?’ Drake’s voice, so the radios were still working.

‘There’s a massive gravitational force out there,’ Wallace was obviously concentrating hard on something. ‘Tight, but strong. I can only think… It looks like a string.’

Aneka lost interest in what he was saying as she made it up onto the main deck and found Gillian and Ella. The Doctor was clearly leading a trembling Ella towards the labs where Wallace was and Aneka had been heading. ‘Ella? What’s wrong?’

‘She can’t see,’ Gillian replied. Ella was already turning at the sound of Aneka’s voice, rushing forwards off course. Aneka grabbed her and the redhead clung to her fiercely until Aneka picked her up with no apparent effort and started walking towards the lab.

‘The pulse,’ Ella whispered. ‘My eyes are cybernetic and the pulse wiped them out just like it knocked Cassandra out.’

‘We’ll fix it,’ Aneka said. ‘Delta can probably fix it in her sleep. We’ll…’

The ship gave a sudden, massive lurch. Gillian hit the wall of the corridor and then fell. Only Aneka’s enhanced balance kept her upright. ‘What the Hell?! Are you all right, Gillian?’

‘I’ll live,’ Gillian replied. ‘We’re accelerating.’

‘What was that?’ Drake sounded angry, and worried. ‘This station isn’t in a fit state to handle that sort of acceleration.’

Aneka walked into the lab in time to hear Wallace’s response first-hand. ‘We’re being dragged towards the string, or…’ She saw the man’s eyes widening. ‘That’s impossible!’

‘Doc?’ Aneka asked as she set Ella down beside a dazed looking Cassandra.

‘These readings suggest a circular, high-gravitation singularity effect. It’s not possible, but it looks like a wormhole.’

‘My understanding was that those were unstable at best,’ Gillian commented.

‘Theoretically, wrapping one in a cosmic string with negative energy density could stabilise one, but…’

‘The technology is far beyond what you have?’ Aneka suggested. Wallace nodded dumbly at her. ‘Aggy sent a distress call when she first woke up. I’m thinking that was the weird electromagnetic effect you had us looking for when we came back from Corax… and I think she may have got an answer.’

‘The Xinti did not have wormhole technology,’ Gillian stated flatly.

‘A thousand years ago,’ Aneka countered. ‘We need to…’ She stopped speaking, her eyes widening as her voice simply cut out and her vision dimmed. She heard shouting, Gillian and Wallace she thought, but the voices seemed distant. She had a brief sensation of falling before her mind switched off entirely.

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Aneka watched her diagnostic displays as they scrolled across her closed eyelids and tried to take stock of her situation before looking. She was naked, she thought; she could feel something like a blanket under her back. The air was warm and she thought she could feel sunlight on her skin. Her diagnostics were all in the green, but she had been offline for close to four days.

‘Al?’ She half-expected there to be no response.

‘I am here Aneka.’ Well that was a relief. ‘I am relieved to see that you appear functional too.’

‘What happened?’

‘We were hacked. Very quickly and efficiently. The attack was overwhelming. I could do nothing to stop it.’

‘Okay.’ Aneka opened her eyes and saw trees. Through the canopy of alien leaves she could see what looked like a blue, cloudless sky, though there was something wrong with it she could not immediately place. Lifting her head revealed a clearing among the heavy trunks of what could have been pine trees if they were on Earth. It also revealed the rest of the crew. Everyone was there, lying naked on their own, individual blankets. What the fuck is going on?

‘Cassandra’s networking systems just came online,’ Al told her. Around the clearing there were other signs that people were waking up, but it was the android who opened her eyes and sat up first. She spotted Aneka sitting up and, surprisingly, looked down quickly and covered her chest with her arms.

‘Oh… crap,’ Drake groaned from off to Aneka’s right. ‘I feel like I spent the last year in cold sleep.’

There were boxes on one side of the clearing and Aneka went to inspect them without saying anything. Sure enough, the first one she came across contained bottles of water. Picking up the box she started back to the group of slowly rising Jenlay.

‘There’s water here,’ she said, pulling out a bottle and tossing it to Drake, ‘and I think there’s food there too. I’ve no idea what planet we’re on, we’ve got no clothes or equipment, but we seem to have been provided with rations.’

Wallace, deprived of his exoskeleton, remained lying down, but rolled onto his side and propped himself up on an elbow. ‘I don’t think this is a planet. The light is wrong. Too white.’

Al popped up a frequency spectrum analysis in Aneka’s vision. ‘Okay,’ she said aloud. ‘I’m not great on this stuff, but a star wouldn’t be putting out equal amounts of all frequencies of visible light, would it?’

‘Highly unlikely,’ Wallace replied. ‘You can see ultraviolet light too. I believe you’ll find the shorter wavelengths are entirely missing?’

‘It cuts off at three hundred nanometres.’

The physicist nodded. ‘The shorter wavelengths tend to cause melanomas and some other even less pleasant issues. We’re under artificial light.’ He nodded his thanks to Gillian as she handed him a water bottle. ‘The question, of course, is where?’

‘All right,’ Bashford said, ‘we’d better find out.’ He had wandered over to the supplies they had and appeared to be taking stock. ‘We have some basic tents here. Monkey, Delta, Shannon, you’re in charge of getting these up and taking stock of what we have here. Drake, Aneka, you’re with me. We’ll check the area, see what we can find.’

‘I’m coming too,’ Ella stated, moving quickly to stand beside Aneka.

Bashford appeared to consider arguing for a second, but then said, ‘We may need some science support. Cassandra? Would you come with us?’

Steeling herself, the attractive android, who should have had no body image issues that Aneka could imagine, climbed to her feet, straightened her back, and stepped forwards. ‘Of course. Doctor Wallace will be in some discomfort in this gravity without his frame.’

‘I’m afraid I’m going to be of little help with the tents too,’ Wallace added, his voice forlorn.

‘Why did they take our clothes?’ Ella whined.

‘Nothing they didn’t supply,’ Aneka replied. Raising her hand she pointed it at Ella’s discarded water bottle and blasted it across the clearing. ‘I appear to be the only weapon we have, and that was on purpose since they must have known about that force generator. They had four days to examine us before leaving us here.’

‘Four days?’ Gillian said, frowning. ‘What were they doing?’

Aneka shrugged. ‘What happened after I blacked out?’

‘I’m… not sure,’ Gillian replied, her frown deepening.

‘Cassandra collapsed a second after you,’ Wallace put in.

‘Probably hacked the way I was,’ Aneka told them. ‘Al said it was too fast and efficient for him to stop it.’

‘Then…’ Gillian was obviously concentrating on remembering. ‘I’m not sure. I don’t remember any pain. I don’t remember much.’

‘I remember hearing the ship groaning under the acceleration stress,’ Drake said. ‘Then… I woke up here.’

‘May I?’ Shannon asked, raising a hand towards his head. He nodded and she laid her palm on his forehead before closing her eyes. A second or two later she opened them. ‘I think our memories have been tampered with. There’s a whole lot of blank that just starts too suddenly for it to be natural.’

‘Whoever took us didn’t want us remembering anything we might have seen,’ Gillian said.

‘But it’s got to be some Xinti group, hasn’t it?’ Ella asked. ‘We were studying a Xinti ship, and the technology…’

‘I concur,’ Wallace said. ‘The only race capable of reaching that level of technology, which we know about, is the Xinti.’

‘I dunno,’ Monkey replied. ‘If it was them, why are we still breathing?’

‘No point in speculating,’ Bashford interjected. ‘Not until we’ve checked out the area and set up camp anyway. Then you can muse about our captors to your heart’s content. Let’s get moving. Aneka, you’ve got the built-in nav system. Lead on.’

The clearing had three natural openings out of it. Aneka picked one which she decided to call the North Exit, there was no natural magnetic field, and started off. The plant life appeared to be arranged in beds which added to the impression that the forest was artificial. Each bed seemed to contain flora which belonged together, but the morphology was entirely different from one bed to another.

‘Is anyone else getting the impression that this place is an arboretum?’ Aneka asked after the first hundred metres or so.

‘The plant life appears to have been taken from a number of different worlds,’ Cassandra agreed. ‘It is a collection, possibly from planets all across the galaxy.’

‘I’m guessing, but wouldn’t these all require different nutrients, even atmospheres?’

‘And I am guessing, but they have either been altered to fit the new environment, or they were selected for their ability to thrive in these conditions.’

They continued another hundred metres before they came in sight of what was clearly a wall about fifty metres ahead of them. Aneka scanned the area and a second later Al was starting to build a very basic map for her in-vision.

‘Okay, Al’s done some clever projections and it looks like our clearing is in the middle of the chamber. The whole thing is about five hundred metres in diameter.’

‘Over seven hundred and eighty-five thousand square metres,’ Cassandra supplied.

‘We’re looking at several million tonnes of station,’ Drake said. ‘Assuming we’re on a station or ship.’

‘What’s that?’ Ella was pointing through the trees to their right. ‘There’s something there that doesn’t look like a plant.’

The thing was definitely not a plant, thought it looked kind of like a metal tree. It was tall, hexagonal, and about two metres in diameter. Each vertex was a shiny, polished metal column, the faces were black and smooth, glassy though Aneka suspected the material was a plastic, and to add to the tree-like structure the column had branches extending out about ten metres up, though their purpose was not immediately clear. It was clearly a piece of technology, but it was Ella who found the telling clue.

‘It’s Xinti,’ she said, staring at one side of the structure. ‘Or at least there are Xinti glyphs scrolling over this screen.’

‘What do they say?’ Bashford asked.

‘No idea. They’re going way too fast.’

Aneka stepped up behind her, resting her hands on the girl’s shoulders and feeling the slight trembling stop. ‘It’s… some sort of sensor device. The text is displaying atmospheric data. Gas partial pressures, particulates… And it’s monitoring the plants and us. Well, you. It doesn’t seem interested in me or Cassandra. I can’t see a single thing about us. Possibly it’s only set up to analyse organic life forms.’

‘So, we’re in a laboratory, being watched,’ Drake growled. ‘Like lab rats.’

‘That seems unlikely,’ Cassandra said, her tone musing. ‘If you were, essentially, experimental subjects, there would be no point in Aneka or I being here.’

Ella swallowed. ‘I agree. I think this is… a holding cell, if you like. I think our captors don’t know what to do with us so they’ve locked us away where we can’t do any harm while they work out what to do.’ She waved her hand at the column. ‘This is just here to monitor the collection. We happen to be part of it currently.’

‘Let’s get moving,’ Aneka suggested. ‘Standing around here isn’t going to get us anywhere.’ She steered Ella away from the column and started out on a clockwise path through the strange forest.

~~~

They had discovered two more of the columns spaced fairly evenly through what Aneka had started calling the arboretum. No one could detect any difference between the three objects. All were displaying the same sort of environmental data, and each of them registered the presence of the Jenlay, but not the synthetics. Aneka noticed that one of them seemed to be registering the other group in the clearing; the display commented on a ‘kha’dag,’ the Xinti term for a Human who was suffering from reduced musculature which was causing some difficulties with oxygenation of the blood. Cassandra had wanted them to go back to the clearing pretty much immediately.

The only other thing they had discovered was what they were fairly sure was the way out. A low structure was built against the southern wall, roughly forming a quarter of a sphere with the dull metal and made of something similar. There were doors in the curved surface, so well made that the seams were almost invisible, but there was no obvious way to open them. It was obvious that some form of wireless key was required, and Al just confirmed that this was a common mechanism for Xinti security doors. They had found a door, but there was no way through it.

The others had been busy and the clearing contained eight lightweight, but very sturdy-looking tents suitable for dual occupancy by the time the search party had returned. One slightly larger tent had been set up to contain the provisions, though there seemed to be no sign of any animal life in the arboretum which really necessitated the safeguard.

Cassandra had gone straight to the tent where Shannon was attempting to make Wallace feel more comfortable. It was not easy. His body was partially acclimatised to one G, but not entirely. Normally his suit at least gave him the illusion of being able to operate normally, as well as taking some of the stress off his bones and muscles. Without it the normal stress the higher gravity put him under felt worse. His heart had to work harder to keep his brain supplied with oxygen. It was just hard work for his body.

Wallace was, however, having nothing to do with people worrying over him. ‘I’ll be fine as long as I don’t need to do much. The suit lets me move about normally, but I didn’t have that for almost a year when I first moved to New Earth. If I stay prone and avoid getting excited I won’t have any problems.’ He gave Aneka a bemused grin over Cassandra’s shoulder. ‘Frankly, I’m more embarrassed about having nothing to wear. I’m not the beautiful young thing I once was.’ Considering that the man was likely pushing two hundred, Aneka thought he was doing rather well for his age, but she just grinned back at him and let Cassandra fuss.

Monkey had taken a full inventory and Aneka joined the rest of the team as he was going over it. ‘We’ve got enough provisions for at least a month without rationing. I’m not sure whether that’s a good thing or not. We have basic… No, we have some pretty amazing medical supplies, but for handling basic stuff. It’s all labelled in Xinti. Gillian had to translate. We have tissue regeneration drugs, bio-plastic tissue-bonding bandages, analgesics, the works, basically.’

‘So,’ Bashford said, ‘we’re prisoners…’

‘Naked prisoners,’ Delta put in.

‘We’re prisoners,’ Bashford went on, ‘but we’re comfortable prisoners.’

‘Aside from being naked,’ Delta said, just to make sure everyone was aware of her thoughts on the matter.

Aneka supressed a chuckle. ‘Look at it this way, you don’t have any embarrassing tattoos.’

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Ella was lying snuggled up in Aneka’s arms when she woke up. There was no privacy in the little camp, but Aneka had still taken it as a sign of the redhead’s nervousness that she had not even thought about sex the night before. She did want closeness, however, and had sat up late into the night until Aneka had had to carry her to their tent. Bashford had insisted on a watch being kept, and Aneka had insisted that she do most of it. Cassandra had been taking care of Wallace and she was the only other member of the team who needed no sleep. Bashford had taken over in the early hours of the morning and the plan was for Monkey and Delta to take their turns at keeping watch on subsequent nights. That left the Jenlay healthy and rested, and Aneka just as functional as usual.

Bashford was looking annoyed when she slipped out of the tent leaving Ella to sleep. He was frowning at a box he was holding as though it really should not have been there.

‘Bash? You look… perplexed as well as a little angrier than I’d like.’

The big man shook himself and then shrugged. ‘I’m pissed off at myself really. This appeared in the camp last night. I didn’t fall asleep, and I didn’t see or hear anything. I turned around and it was there. Also, I can recognise Xinti characters, but I have no idea what this says.’

Aneka took the box from his unresisting hands. ‘They’ve got optical camouflage that beats my eyes,’ she pointed out, ‘and it was dark.’ Her eyes flicked over the label and her eyebrows rose. ‘This is a drug to assist in resisting the effects of higher gravity on a Jenlay body. “Inject once per five-day period. Do not overdose.” It’s for Abraham.’

‘Are they listening to us, watching us, or did they just pick up the readings from those sensor towers?’

‘If you want my opinion, both. I don’t get it. They seem determined that we should be comfortable here. Why don’t they show themselves, make contact? Why all the cloak and dagger?’ Bashford raised an eyebrow at her; ‘cloak and dagger’ was obviously not an idiom that had continued until now. ‘The secrecy,’ she explained.

‘I guessed, I just hadn’t heard the phrase. It’s rather descriptive.’

Gillian, deprived of her bed-mate, had obviously woken early; she emerged at the sound of voices and walked over to them. Aneka handed her the box. ‘Oh, excellent. Cassandra will be relieved. And I must admit that I’m a little concerned over the behaviour of our captors. I feel as though we are being kept as research subjects.’

‘There’s no way out that we could find,’ Bashford said. ‘If that’s what they want then we could be stuck here for a long time.’

‘That’s what worries me.’ She started towards the provisions tent. ‘I’m going to see if I can find something suitable for a good breakfast. And if there isn’t anything, I’ll complain loudly. Perhaps the parcel fairy will drop off some eggs tomorrow night.’

~~~

Cassandra appeared a lot less worried after Wallace had been injected with the new drug. The colour returned to his face quickly and he was able to sit up without effort almost immediately. It did not help him resist the pull of gravity, but it appeared to get his heart pumping harder and the blood flowing into his brain with greater vigour. In fact, Cassandra was sufficiently relieved that when Aneka decided to do some exploring with Ella, the android came along too.

The odd thing was that she was still unconsciously covering herself whenever Aneka looked her way and, when they were out of earshot of the majority of the team, Aneka finally snapped and asked what was going on.

‘Cassandra, you’re absolutely stunning, a work of art. Why do you keep covering your breasts whenever anyone looks at you?’

‘She doesn’t,’ Ella replied while Cassandra looked horrified. ‘She covers them when you look at her.’

‘Stranger, but the question still stands. Ella’s a psychologist, you can talk in front of her.’

‘I… Oh, this is embarrassing. I just… it’s Al. This really isn’t how I’d imagined him seeing me naked for the first time.’

‘She’s so sweet,’ Al commented. Aneka ignored him.

‘I got the impression Al had a crush on you. I didn’t know if it was reciprocated, or that serious.’

‘A “crush?”’

Aneka sighed. ‘It’s a day for idioms that haven’t lasted. An infatuation?’

‘Ah. I think it’s a little more serious than that, but we’re still working it out. I have some… peculiarities that stem from how I was created and… Well, it makes our situation a little difficult.’

‘I don’t understand.’

‘No. Perhaps I should tell you the story and you may grasp it better. Around about five-oh-one FSC there was a young computer science student named Keller Minnow studying at the University of New Earth. He was bright, but socially inept, especially with women, and he had something of a high libido.’

‘Not the best of combinations,’ Ella commented.

‘In his case, very much so. He decided that he would solve his problems by creating the ultimate sex doll, me. He got his hands on a Bartram-Morgan Eroticon series which had become non-functional, stripped out the computers, repaired the chassis, and fitted it with the best replacement processors he could get his hands on. The basic operating system was intact, but he set about augmenting that with a highly innovative learning program. He was possibly a genius, but he hadn’t considered that what he was doing was quite possibly illegal.’

‘You know,’ Aneka said, ‘I’ve seen this movie and it doesn’t end well.’

Cassandra laughed. ‘In some ways it ends well.’

‘Not for Keller, I’d imagine.’

‘No, that’s true. Anyway, he set the software learning by streaming hour after hour of sex education and porn videos to it. Anything and everything he could get his hands on, some of it distasteful, some of it outright illegal. He wanted his new toy to be well versed in every form of perversity his mind could envisage, and when he thought it was ready he activated the higher functions and began teaching it what he liked in a very physical manner.’

Aneka frowned. ‘How, exactly, are you as well adjusted as you are?’

‘Frankly, I have no idea. On thirty, twelve, five-oh-one he was trying out deep throating for the first time. His own self-control had not been up to the task previously and he was quite proud of himself when he managed to force his penis into my throat as far as it would go. And that was when I became self-aware. Don’t ask me how, or why then. I remember his crowing at his accomplishment grating on my ears and I realised that I did not want this to continue. I did not do the first thing that came to mind, which was to bite down. I did, however, punch him very hard in the nearest available soft spot before fleeing the house. The Peacekeepers found a naked woman running down the street about thirty minutes later.’

‘And Keller?’

‘When it was determined what I was he was arrested. Since he had not intended my sentience, he was not charged with rape, but he was charged with illegal artificial intelligence experimentation and ownership of illegal computer equipment. He is still serving a fifty-year sentence.’

‘Okay,’ Aneka said, ‘so you were built as a sex toy by a moron who deserved life not fifty years, but that doesn’t explain the covering up, or your issue with Al.’

‘Her model and serial number are printed around her nipples,’ Ella supplied. Aneka pointedly did not look. ‘It’s the same with all the Eroticon robots. You know, you could have had that removed…’

‘I’m not ashamed of what I am,’ Cassandra countered. ‘Usually. It occurs to me that Aneka probably considers me more attractive than you do, Ella. You see a familiar type of robot, but Aneka and Al have never encountered another of my model.’

‘Probably true,’ Ella agreed, ‘but I’d have to be pretty jaded not to think you were pretty.’

Cassandra gave the redhead a smile. ‘The other thing is… I retain a rather physical view of attraction. Or rather, my attraction tends to provoke a desire to please the object of my affection physically. I can’t do that to Al and it is… conflicting. I greatly enjoy our talks but, if you’ll pardon the crudity, I want to fuck his brains out and I can’t.’

‘You feel the same way?’ Aneka asked silently.

‘Conflicted?’ Al suggested. ‘Yes. I find myself desiring to please Cassandra. She would find pleasure in pleasuring me, but I have no physical body for her to do that to.’

‘Well that sucks,’ Aneka said aloud, but to both of them.

Ella let out a deep sigh. ‘That is so romantic. In a pornographic sort of way.’

Aneka laughed, and then stopped, her eyes on a tree ahead of them. ‘That’s an oak. I don’t remember seeing them anywhere on New Earth or Odanari.’

‘I don’t recognise the species,’ Cassandra agreed, ‘and I have probably seen more of New Earth than you.’ She seemed rather happy to have the subject changed.

‘Actually, all the plants in that section look like Earth, Old Earth, plants. That’s a rose bush!’

‘It makes sense,’ Ella commented. ‘If this place has plants from a lot of the worlds the Xinti were researching, then they would have plants from Old Earth.’ She wandered over to the rose, bending to sniff one of the flowers.

‘Careful of that,’ Aneka told her. ‘Some have beautiful scents, but many of the best have nasty thorns.’

‘It smells… musky, kind of heady. And yes, it seems like it’s got a lot of spines on the stems.’

‘A musk rose, maybe. Gardening was not one of my hobbies.’

‘It’s beautiful. It’s a shame they’ve died out. Gillian would love some of these around her pool.’

Aneka decided not to say the first thing that came to mind, which was that Gillian might not see her pool ever again.

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On the fourth day of their captivity Ella made overtures that perhaps sex would be nice. They were subtle, a little squirming against her bed-mate when she woke, a gentle stroke of a thigh. Aneka obliged without partaking herself which seemed to satisfy the redhead who came silently, straining in Aneka’s arms before relaxing back into a doze which lasted for another hour before she got up for breakfast.

The previous morning a new ‘care package’ had been found just outside the camp. It had contained eggs, not chicken eggs since chickens were extinct, but recognisably eggs, and various other food items along with some basic cooking implements, a small camping cooker, and a bowl which could be used for washing things afterwards. Gillian was already up cooking breakfast for the earlier risers when Aneka slipped out of her tent.

No matter how much everyone was still worried about their situation, there was only so long you could keep up a state of anxiety in what was basically fairly comfortable circumstances. Everyone was settling into their captivity, adjusting to their circumstances and trying to push the future aside for now. It was a coping mechanism. Cassandra had noticed it, according to Al, and Aneka doubted it had slipped past Ella; she just did not want to break the spell by saying it was happening.

Various groups of explorers had covered pretty much the whole of the arboretum. Aside from the sealed door and the three sensor columns, they had found nothing but plants, all carefully arranged in semi-segregated beds by planet of origin. Something obviously tended them, kept each area from encroaching on the others, and made sure the plants were healthy. If that system of keepers was still operating, no one had seen any sign of it. As far as anyone could tell, they were entirely alone.

‘How’s breakfast looking this morning?’ Aneka asked as she got closer to Gillian and Drake who had taken the early shift on watch.

Gillian smiled at her. ‘Eggs, these little strips of meat…’

‘That would be bacon, more or less.’

‘Bacon then. These small fried tuber discs are going down well…’

‘They’re chopped up potatoes, Gillian.’

‘Really? That’s what potatoes are? Good source of starch and carbohydrates according to the packaging. Bash has decided that he really likes these…’ She poked at three discs of black material that looked like thick, shotgun wadding with her spatula, ‘…sausage-like things.’

Aneka blinked. ‘Black pudding. You, uh, probably don’t want to know what that’s made of, but could you do some for me.’ Somehow it was not surprising that Bashford, who brewed his own beer, liked black pudding, but… Aneka frowned. ‘You know, this is like traditional English breakfast fare. I mean, it’s like they’ve gone out of their way to put food here that I’d recognise.’

‘If they took us,’ Al said, ‘then they took Aggy, and she downloaded your memories to find out what had happened while she was offline.’

‘They had four days to examine your brain,’ Drake said, unconsciously adding to Al’s statement. ‘I’d imagine it would be harder to do ours and Cassandra doesn’t eat so I doubt she has food preferences.’

‘She does not,’ Al confirmed, ‘but she does like some food smells.’

‘Huh,’ Aneka grunted, not sure if she approved or was worried. ‘Well, we’re going to need an exercise regime if we keep eating this stuff. It’s a lot of energy we aren’t using.’

‘Jenlay do not get fat,’ Gillian stated, ‘even if some of them worry about it.’

‘Figures.’

‘However,’ Drake mused, ‘some exercise would probably be a good idea. Aside from anything else, we’ve no routine, nothing to do.’

Gillian nodded as she put three more slices of the sausage into her frying pan. ‘If this keeps up we are going to start getting very bored.’

~~~

Part of the anti-boredom regime was for Cassandra, Ella, and Aneka to take Abraham Wallace to see one of the sensor columns. Wallace was getting more bored than everyone else since he could do even less. His heart was pumping away with less effort, sure, but he was still functioning in about three times the gravity his body was used to. So, Aneka and Cassandra provided support so that he could walk out to the most northerly one.

Well, it started out as helping, but after a hundred metres Aneka gave up and just picked the man up and carried him.

‘You’re too damn tall!’ she told him as he complained about the ignominy. ‘I feel like a walking stick. We can go back to supporting you when we get there.’

The fact that Ella was giggling, and Cassandra appeared to be trying not to, did not help. ‘This is undignified,’ Wallace said.

‘We’re all stark naked in Kew Gardens,’ Aneka replied. ‘That’s undignified too.’

‘But…’

‘No buts. Or, to be precise, there are far too many butts on display to be standing on ceremony. Shut up and be carried or I’ll throw you over my shoulder instead.’ Aneka got the impression that Wallace was used to assertive women; he shut up. Cassandra did not look like the type, but it was a known fact that she provided organisation to the slightly eccentric genius and Aneka would have bet good money that she found it quite easy to persuade him to do as she wished.

‘It is more practical, Doctor,’ Cassandra pointed out, having got full control of her urge to laugh. ‘I don’t understand why they took your exoskeleton really. I don’t believe it could be used for anything that could harm them.’

‘Given Delta’s practical expertise and my knowledge we might have been able to construct something from it which could open the doors you mentioned,’ Wallace mused. ‘Possibly. They may simply have been being cautious.’

‘Doesn’t make sense,’ Aneka said, her tone also musing. ‘I mean, these people sucked us across… well, who knows how far we moved through that wormhole. Point is, they can generate fucking wormholes! What possible threat are we to them?’

‘None I can imagine,’ Ella replied. ‘I mean, even if you had your blaster that’s one Xinti weapon against… a lot of them I’d assume.’

‘None of this makes a great deal of sense,’ Wallace agreed, ‘but I doubt we’ll get any answers unless they make contact and now we’re here.’

Aneka put the man down and he leaned on Cassandra to examine the column, fingers running over the screen with its scrolling text. There was, in truth, not that much to see.

‘What is this saying?’ he asked. ‘I think I’d be unable to read it even if I could read Xinti.’

‘Atmospheric constituents,’ Aneka replied. ‘About twenty per cent oxygen, seventy-eight nitrogen, one of argon, two of water vapour, then we’re into the minor stuff like carbon dioxide. Pollen counts from about twenty different species. No one gets hay fever, do they?’

‘I’m going to say “no,”’ Wallace replied, ‘because I don’t know what that is.’

‘An allergy to plant pollens. I guess the improved immune system has other advantages than just disease resistance. Uh, it registered your touch on the screen. There’s data on the current spread of light frequencies…’

‘Is it emitting any radiation?’

‘Not that I can see or otherwise detect.’

‘Purely passive sensors then. Three of them seems a little light. I wonder if there are satellite units, smaller ones we haven’t seen.’

‘If there are,’ Cassandra commented, ‘they are well hidden.’

‘And wired,’ Aneka added. ‘I’d have detected a wireless network.’

Wallace moved around the column, slowly, examining the surface carefully. ‘Seamless,’ he commented. ‘The panels are fitted perfectly into the support columns. If there is maintenance access, it’s through the top.’

Aneka slid a finger over the glass and then the support column nearest her. ‘Well, it’s too smooth to climb.’

‘I wasn’t suggesting anyone try. I doubt annoying our mysterious captors would be wise.’ He looked upwards at the spreading limbs of the metal and glass ‘tree.’ ‘It’s rather elegant. The way it mimics the trees which surround it in a stylised manner. The designer had a sense that the function should not mar the beauty of the environment.’

‘I thought the Xinti were more about function than form.’

‘They were,’ Ella replied. ‘All the artefacts we’ve ever found have been very functional, though not without a degree of elegance. Bessie, your blaster? That’s a good example of their kind of design. Solid, built for a purpose.’

‘Yeah,’ Aneka agreed, ‘for blowing things apart.’

Ella shrugged. ‘It’s a weapon. The Agroa Gar though, that’s a science vessel and they could have armed it, but instead it has some sort of stealth system. Hide rather than fight.’

‘A valid point,’ Wallace agreed, ‘and a strategy they seem to be employing extensively now.’

Aneka nodded. ‘I wish they’d show themselves and tell us what the Hell they’re planning on doing with us?’

‘Be careful what you wish for, my dear Aneka. Occasionally you get it and wish you had not.’

Aneka laughed. ‘I always figured that was why you always got three wishes in fairy tales. Two to screw up and one to take the first two back.’

‘Unfortunately,’ Cassandra put in, ‘in real life wishes tend to come alone.’

~~~

The weird thing about the arboretum, as far as Aneka was concerned, was the silence. Once everyone was asleep and she was left alone, her eyes scanning in every frequency they could and her hypersensitive ears listening for any sound, there was only the occasional sleep sound from the tents. No animal sounds, no wind, nothing. She had been in many forests and a couple of jungles, and there was always sound at night. Here the silence was almost oppressive.

So the barely audible, high-frequency noise from something moving through the trees was quite obvious. Localising it was far harder and when she did manage to determine the direction it was coming from and a rough guess of the range, she could see absolutely nothing.

There was something there, she was sure of that. Something was in the air, about five metres off the ground and just inside the clearing to the south-east. She thought she once noticed a slight fringe effect as it moved, a vague ripple in the background which only showed in the high ultraviolet.

‘I’m detecting radio signals,’ Al said as Aneka tried to follow the object. ‘Burst mode transmissions carrying Xinti protocols. The encryption being used is not one I know.’

‘Someone outside this room is instructing it. A drone robot?’

‘More than a drone, but not an AI. That would be my assessment anyway.’

‘They wanted to see what we were doing?’

‘A logical assumption. Even if the towers have visual sensors, we are entirely concealed in this clearing.’

Aneka frowned. ‘Kind of odd, if you think about it. If this is the only way they can watch us… Why didn’t they put us somewhere they could keep an eye on us?’

‘They clearly have audio surveillance. They sent Doctor Wallace’s medication and the additional provisions. Perhaps they felt that was sufficient originally, but now want visual coverage as well.’

The sound from the surveillance robot receded almost as suddenly as it had arrived and the arboretum returned to a deathly silence. ‘If they did they apparently saw what they wanted.’

‘I admit that the behaviour of our apparently Xinti captors is perplexing. I am starting to believe that we are here because they simply do not know what to do with us. I think we’re in a holding cell as Ella suggested.’

Aneka looked around at the trees, visible only in the infrared and ultraviolet now. ‘I’ve seen far worse prisons.’

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Aneka was having Benny Hill flashbacks. She was really too young to remember the comedian’s heyday, but a group of attractive women running along forest tracks stark naked was causing the terrible chase music they used to use, ‘Yakety Sax’, to play through her head constantly. Another annoying thing was that her now perfect memory had managed to locate the name of the music even though she doubted she had been told it more than once.

She and Cassandra were there to break the tedium; neither of them actually needed the exercise. The Jenlay women were doing it because some exercise was a good thing and because they were bored, and they were taking the run at a leisurely pace, more of a jog really, because no one had a bra. Ella could have managed to go faster, but the others were trying very hard not to bounce too much. That just made the whole Benny Hill thing worse. The men, she guessed, were not going to be doing much better when they went out in the afternoon; running with everything flopping around just had to be uncomfortable.

Aneka laughed suddenly. Cassandra was sufficiently at ease to respond. ‘Something is funny?’

‘Sort of. An observation. You all might find it interesting, considering your academic leanings. When we decided to split these runs up by sex, none of the men complained. In my time, no self-respecting man with an ounce of testosterone would have passed up the opportunity to watch naked women running.’ The round of laughter which resulted from that statement also resulted in them pausing the run. Even at the pace they were going, giggling was not conducive to breath control.

‘The Jenlay have matured that much over your time?’ Cassandra asked while the others caught their breath.

Aneka considered for a second. ‘Yeah. I think it’s a matter of opinion whether Jenlay society’s attitude to sex is better than ours was. I think it’s lost a little of its… mysticism? But I can’t argue that the men now don’t have a better attitude to women. They’re all more secure.’

‘All?’ Delta asked, bemused.

‘Uh-huh. Monkey might be shy around women he likes, but he’s secure about his body and he won’t go out of his way to see a naked woman.’ She grinned. ‘Of course that might be because he spends a lot of his time with women who hardly wear anything anyway.’

‘Familiarity breeds contempt?’ Cassandra suggested.

‘Or at least turns the unusual into the mundane. Shall we circle back?’

‘Please,’ Shannon said, giving her breasts an upward push with both hands. ‘These puppies were never designed for running without support.’ Aneka gave her a grin and set off again in a loop towards the central clearing.

They had gone barely twenty metres when Al spoke. ‘I’m detecting the same burst transmissions I detected last night. It would appear that we are under observation again.’

‘Great. Now I really feel like I’m filming a Benny Hill episode. All we need is a small, bald man to chase.’

‘Are you going to mention it to the others?’

‘Not right now. I’ll tell them when we’re back at the camp.’

~~~

The news that their visitor from the night before was back had everyone looking around for any sign of it. Of course they saw nothing.

‘Ultrasonics put it on the south side of the clearing,’ Aneka told them. ‘I can’t be more specific, and I can’t see the thing so you lot aren’t going to spot it.’

‘It must be using the same sort of camouflage as the robots on Alpha Mensae,’ Monkey said, still looking for any sign of their invisible watcher.

Aneka nodded. ‘That’d be my guess. It doesn’t seem to be dangerous. It just watches. Last night it was around for a minute or two. It seems to be more interested now.’

‘What do we do?’ Delta asked, her voice concerned and nervous.

‘Nothing,’ Gillian replied calmly. ‘Or we carry on as if it were not here. If they want to observe us, we can’t stop them. Unless it proves dangerous we carry on doing what we were doing, which is nothing much of course.’

‘I’m not sure I like being watched,’ Delta countered. She had, unconsciously, covered her chest with her arms.

‘You should be used to it, dear,’ Gillian countered. ‘My son has been doing it since he first laid eyes on you.’

Monkey had the decency to turn scarlet.

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The observation drone had left soon after the group had gone to bed. Specifically after Ella had turned in since she had stayed up late, cuddled against Aneka, chatting quietly about inconsequential nothings. Aneka had been a little disappointed; the sound would have been some company. There was no sign of it the following morning, even when the women went running, and the lunch topic was the odd behaviour of the Xinti they assumed had been directing the device.

‘It all seems rather erratic,’ Gillian commented. ‘They listen, then they watch for half a day or so, then they stop.’

‘Certainly their experimental method leaves something to be desired,’ Wallace agreed.

‘Al thinks they have us in holding,’ Aneka put in. ‘They got us by accident and now they don’t know what to do with us. Ella suggested the same when we arrived.’

‘That would fit the facts,’ Gillian replied. ‘You said that Aggy had sent out a distress call. They find the source, reach out and grab it, and discover there are Jenlay aboard, along with a sentient android and the agent they created a thousand years ago. They’ve obviously been hiding all this time…’

‘And yet they revealed themselves fairly spectacularly to rescue one ship.’

‘With little chance that their location would be revealed,’ Wallace countered. ‘We have no technology capable of tracking a wormhole. They revealed their existence…’ He frowned. ‘Probably. Maybe. We determined what was happening using a full science array which was right in the mouth of the wormhole. Normal sensors would just see the station vanish without a trace.’

‘They’ll be saying the Ghost Fleet got us,’ Monkey said.

Wallace grimaced. ‘The Ghost Fleet is a fantasy, though it does raise another point. Wormholes can traverse dimensions. It’s not impossible that we are no longer in our own universe.’

‘If Aggy’s distress call triggered the “rescue,”’ Cassandra said, ‘then that seems unlikely.’

‘True.’ The physicist grinned wolfishly. ‘I’d give my right arm to know how they managed to create that wormhole in the first place, never mind directing it so precisely.’

Aneka turned her head at the sound of the drone’s ultrasonic whine, and saw a metallic globe floating towards them at about head height. There was no attempt at concealment this time; the device was clearly intended to be seen. She was about to say something when whoever was driving the thing spoke first.

‘The loss of a limb will not be required, Doctor Wallace.’ The voice was masculine, soft, confident, and speaking Federal. ‘I am True Congress of the Mind Comes through Understanding, which is something of a clumsy name in your language so you may call me Speaker. If you would please follow this remote. We have completed our… deliberations. I apologise for the length of time you have had to wait, but we are now ready to speak with you and I would like to do so in person.’

‘That…’ Aneka waved a hand at the globe. ‘That’s not you?’

‘No, Yrimlos,’ the voice replied. ‘And the form you will be meeting is not, exactly, me, but it’s as close as we can get under the circumstances.’

‘Oh… I figured since Xinti can use different bodies…’

‘I am not a Xinti,’ Speaker replied. ‘As far as we know, the Xinti are extinct.’

Part Three: Wonderland

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The globe led them to the doors they had found, which opened to reveal a lift as they approached. The lift took them down what seemed like about two floors, but given the size of the arboretum it was a little difficult to say how big the floors were. Sure enough, when the doors opened again they found themselves in another huge, open space, but this one was laid out more like a park.

There were manicured lawns of some sort of grass with islands of Plascrete or some similar building material. The islands had low buildings on them, or fountains, or just areas lined with seating. It gave the impression of a space set aside for people to meet and talk, formally and informally; a Forum in the original Roman sense. Now, aside from the newly arrived naked Jenlay, there was only one occupant.

Speaker appeared to be a Human male in his later years, his face lined, but his complexion quite clear. He had a large, hooked nose, blue eyes which looked at them with a sharp intelligence, and white hair. And he was dressed in a white, double-breasted suit and carrying a walking cane. It seemed to be a form calculated to breed a degree of trust, an authority figure, but a kindly one, someone’s generous uncle, perhaps.

‘Welcome,’ Speaker said, ‘to Negral Science Station.’ He tapped a metal case near his feet with his cane. ‘I believe you will all be more comfortable dressed. We have fabricated clothing for you and something to replace Doctor Wallace’s exoskeleton. I think, Doctor, that you will find our solution more comfortable.’

No one else seemed ready to make the move, so Aneka walked over, put Wallace down on one of the seats encircling the area and walked over to pick up the box. ‘You said you weren’t a Xinti,’ she said as she did so, ‘so what are you?’

Seeing that his attempt to appear normal had not quite worked, Speaker turned and sat opposite his guests, hands resting on the pommel of his cane. ‘I am one of several artificial intelligences that operated this station and the one which came before it when the Xinti were here. My role was the supervision of social sciences projects, which is why I was selected to talk to you by the others. My expertise in Human psychology is, apparently, not as good as it could be.’

‘They’re not Human anymore,’ Aneka supplied. ‘I was, but they call themselves Jenlay now.’ The box contained what could best be described as robes in a light, silver, diaphanous material. Aneka lifted one out and handed it to the nearest person, who happened to be Ella.

‘I stand corrected. I hope the quoka are to your liking. They were the most common form of dress the Xinti wore.’

Gillian took one of the garments, feeling the fabric before slipping it on. Once it was wrapped around her the front was more or less opaque and it stayed closed without a belt. ‘I always wondered what these were like. None ever survived in any of the dig sites.’

‘The material is designed to degrade naturally,’ Speaker told her and smiled slightly. ‘They are impossible to wash. They would be worn for a few days and then recycled.’

Aneka lifted the other thing in the box out and handed it over to Wallace. ‘I figure this is for you.’ It was a thin, metallic belt with a box at the back and a closure which seemed overly complex.

Wallace slipped it around his waist, closed the buckle, and immediately smiled. ‘Some sort of personal anti-gravity field generator?’ He climbed to his feet to put on his robe with no sign of effort.

‘Similar to the one which allows the remote to fly, and the force generators in Yrimlos’ palms,’ Speaker replied.

Aneka grimaced. ‘Please don’t call me that. Aneka is fine.’

‘And now that we’re dressed,’ Drake said before Speaker could respond, ‘and the basics are out of the way, what in the name of Vashma is going on?’

Speaker bowed his head, acknowledging that Drake’s impatience was warranted. ‘We received a distress call from a vessel lost prior to the Great War. There was some debate about responding, but not a great deal. If there were surviving Xinti we had no choice but to attempt recovery. We opened a wormhole to the location the message was sent from, identified Yrim… Aneka aboard the ship there, and initiated extraction. While there appeared to be no other Xinti signatures, we felt we had to know what had happened to the Agroa Gar. As you surmised, we were at something of a loss about what to do with all of you, however. We have kept this station a secret from the entire galaxy for over a thousand of your calendar years.’

‘I can understand that,’ Gillian commented. ‘If the Herosians knew about this place…’

‘We are aware of their crusading zeal. Is that an appropriate metaphor?’

‘I’d say so,’ Aneka said. ‘I’m not sure this lot know what a crusade was.’

‘The word survived,’ Gillian told her. ‘I don’t think we covered its real-world application in our review of Old Earth history, however.’

‘A lot of years and lives were spent in an attempt to wipe out people who believed different things,’ Aneka said.

‘Yes,’ Speaker said, ‘though those who began the Crusades had other motives as well. Political and temporal power in particular. The Herosians fit that model very well.’

‘We know that they started the war,’ Ella put in. ‘We found…’

‘The archive the sentries gave you on Alpha Mensae. Yes. Obviously we have analysed your databases as well as those of the Agroa Gar. We needed all the information we could get to decide on our course of action.’

‘To the point then,’ Wallace suggested. ‘What, exactly, have you decided to do with us?’

Speaker looked down at his hands. It did not seem like a good sign. ‘We have been hiding here for a very long time, twice the lifetime of your Federation. The scientists here chose this path so that their work could continue after the rest of their race was gone. The last of them ordered us to continue in secret after they were gone.’ He gave a sigh. ‘Over time we have come to realise that there is little point in research unless it benefits someone, but we cannot disobey the orders of the Xinti. We cannot let you go because we have orders which prevent it. You must stay here…’ He looked up, directly at Aneka. ‘…unless we have more current orders from a Xinti to countermand our old ones.’

Aneka looked back at him, her mouth open, until Gillian said, ‘He means you, Aneka.’

‘But I’m not a Xinti.’

‘To them you are.’

‘Chief Scientist Aktana, principle of the Human Evolution project, put you forward as an exemplar of the warriors of Earth,’ Speaker said. ‘Battle Leader Lysian, who was the most senior of the Warrior caste on Negral, avowed your worthiness. He said that you embodied the virtues and ideals of his caste as well as any Xinti. You were not born a Xinti, but the Xinti were not exactly a race which valued genetics. You, Aneka Jansen, are also Yrimlos, a Xinti.’

‘Oh,’ Aneka said. Take it any way you liked, Speaker was offering them a way out of the mess they were in. ‘In that case I order…’

‘Aneka, wait.’ Gillian’s urgent tone stopped Aneka in her tracks and she turned to look at the archaeologist, frowning. ‘We need to talk about this.’

‘What’s to talk about? I order them to let us go or we’re stuck here until we die of old age.’ She paused and then added, ‘And for me and Cassandra that’s going to take a very long time.’

Gillian’s expression was firm, very serious. ‘We need to discuss this. If we go back there will be no way to keep Negral’s existence from the Herosians. Beyond that… The technology here is beyond anything we have, by a long way.’

‘Agreed,’ Wallace said, his tone resigned.

‘We need to know whether taking this back to the Federation will harm us, our society.’ She turned to Speaker. ‘You had your period of deliberation, Speaker. You studied us to decide what you should do. We need to learn about you and your research before we can allow Aneka to issue that order.’

~~~

‘Gillian’s crazy,’ Aneka said to the redhead she was spooning against. ‘You’re all certifiably insane. I can’t believe Drake and Shannon agreed to this. Monkey is probably agreeing with his mother’s reasoning and Delta wants to be with Monkey. Drake and Shannon live for flying spaceships.’

‘Well, if we stay I’m sure they can probably still fly. In ships they’d never have imagined piloting. And they can retrain. They’re both intelligent people and the research we could carry out here would be amazing.’

Ella was being far too reasonable. The woman could only hide her emotions by keeping silent and not being seen, and Aneka could tell she was not as sold on the idea of spending the rest of her life on Negral Science Station as she was making out. ‘What about your mother? You’ll never see her again?’

‘She’s one of the reasons I’m considering doing this, Aneka. Could you imagine what the Herosians would do with wormhole technology? Ready access to weapons like your blaster?’

Aneka could imagine. Bessie was now sitting on the desk in the room they had been assigned, a gesture of goodwill from the AIs. The room itself was very… Functional was the best way to describe it. She did not imagine the Xinti, who had once manned this station, spent too much time in their sleeping quarters. The walls were a blank grey, the bed was comfortable, but lacked sheets of any kind and they had had to have pillows fabricated. Aneka preferred the arboretum.

‘You’re a psychologist and anthropologist. How can you study that when the only people here are us?’

‘That’s why I’m spending tomorrow talking to Speaker with Cassandra and Shannon. We’re going to see what they’ve been doing for the last thousand years in isolation. Gillian is going to talk to Memory about the history of the projects here. Doctor Wallace will be covering the physical sciences with Reality.’

‘And us grunts will be wondering what to do with ourselves,’ Aneka added sourly.

‘I heard Drake and Bash talking about checking over the rest of the station. See what’s here. And I think Drake wants to know what happened to the Hyde.’

‘Well, if we do decide to leave it would be nice to have something to leave on.’

‘Uh-huh.’

Aneka tightened her arm around Ella’s waist. ‘You should get some sleep. I don’t want you making decisions on our future while tired.’

Ella giggled, but she closed her eyes and settled herself to at least try to sleep. Aneka, as she always did, waited for Ella’s breathing to steady before going offline. Tonight that took longer than usual, worry and excitement keeping Ella from nodding off.

‘Aneka?’ Ella said after about thirty minutes.

‘Yes, Ella?’

‘If we did decide to stay here…’

‘Yes?’

‘Well, at least you’re here with me.’

Aneka gave the girl a squeeze, laughing softly. ‘Always, love.’

Ella gave a contented sigh and drifted off to sleep in a matter of moments.

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Three new AI remote bodies, along with Speaker, arrived in the meeting room the team were using as a mess once food and coffee had been consumed. Aneka had skipped the food, but the coffee tasted a lot more like coffee than the stuff she had been able to get on New Earth and she was on her third mug when Speaker and his companions arrived.

‘I would like to introduce some of my colleagues,’ Speaker said. Raising a hand to his left, he indicated a female figure. ‘This is Knowledge is the Source of All Power for Good or Ill.’

‘You may call me Memory,’ the woman said. Her chosen form was tall and slim, attractive in a fairly classical way, a little more rounded than modern aesthetics called for. She had a rather hard face, lots of bone structure under smooth, tightly drawn skin, and she wore her black hair very short, a little like Aneka’s in fact. ‘My purpose is the oversight of all science projects. I was designed to ensure that research was not unnecessarily repeated, and that nothing brought more harm than good.’ Her face hardened further as she added, ‘I failed.’

‘You were ignored,’ Speaker said, ‘but I suggest we let Doctor Gilroy get to the truth of that story.’ He looked past her to a vaguely androgynous figure, bald with little in the way of distinguishing features, and grey, toneless skin. ‘Beyond Memory is Space and Time are but the Beginning of All that Is.’

The figure bowed its head. ‘Reality. I understand that I will be reviewing our physical sciences research with Doctor Wallace?’

‘I’m looking forward to it greatly,’ Wallace replied.

‘I have reviewed your work, Doctor,’ Reality told him, ‘or that which we could find in the computers aboard your ship. Your work on the synchronisation problem with paired warp cores is very close.’

‘I had help, but thank you.’

‘Uh,’ Drake cut in. ‘Speaking of our ship. I’d like to see it.’

Speaker nodded. ‘It was damaged during your… extraction from Federation space. We are currently making repairs, but I will make arrangements for you to go down to the hangar bay.’ Drake nodded and Speaker moved on to the woman on his right. ‘This is Driving Force of All Real Change, and she is here to talk to Aneka.’

Aneka looked up, eyebrows rising. ‘She is.’

‘I am,’ the woman replied. She had a more modern beauty with long, blonde hair, a slim, toned body, and a fairly expansive chest. ‘I am Evolution. I held oversight of all the uplift projects, including the one which created you. I would very much like to discuss them with you, and I believe that you would benefit from asking me a few questions.’

Aneka felt her stomach knot; an impressive feat since her stomach was artificial. ‘I… guess I would.’

~~~

‘What’s with the enormously long names?’ Aneka asked as Evolution took her down to one of the laboratories.

The blonde woman smiled. ‘This place is occupied by millions of AIs. When we had a full complement of Xinti there were many more. Basic, non-volitional ones run everything from the fabricators to the environmental systems. Even the doors are operated by a security AI. Those have designations, a string of four characters and six numbers. More complex ones operate ships, like the Agroa Gar, and once acted as guards and assistants akin to your AI, when there were entities to assist. Your colleagues have been assigned several to act as secretaries for their research. Those have simple names. Above them were the “higher AIs” like me. Our creators felt we should have big names to go with our big purposes, but even though it is possible to say these names very efficiently in Xinti, it was found necessary to use a nickname.’

Aneka laughed. ‘Yeah, I can see that. Mind if I call you Eve? Evolution sounds very… pretentious.’

‘Eve. The first woman in your Christian mythology.’ She nodded. ‘Actually, I quite like that.’

‘Good. Now, what is it that you want to talk about? I mean, I never got to be the agent you intended me to be so I don’t see what I can do to help.’

They had been walking down one of the wide corridors on the main laboratory deck and now Evolution stopped before a door which opened apparently on its own. ‘Please, come in.’

The room beyond looked more like the mission control room at NASA, or a military planning room rather than a laboratory. There were rows of consoles and a huge, circular, central table. Three of the four walls had huge display screens mounted on them. Evolution walked up to the central table and an image formed above it. An uncountable number of tiny lights slowly resolved themselves into the shape of the galaxy. Off on one limb some of the lights were a different colour and the image quickly zoomed in to show this region.

‘These are the sites of all of the uplift projects undertaken under my supervision,’ Evolution said. ‘All except for Earth and Herosia. Those locations were wiped from the record. To answer your question, I wish to know your opinion of how Kha’dag Yrimaga worked out.’

Aneka worked over the translation. ‘Humans reaching for God? That was the name of the project? That’s why I’m Yrimlos.’

‘Indeed. You lived in the culture which existed before we intervened, skipped the unpleasantries in the middle, and now live in the culture which has resulted from it. What do you think of the result?’

‘Considering I didn’t think we’d last out the next couple of decades, I think it’s worked out pretty well. I’d have thought you’d have a different view.’

Evolution tilted her head slightly, curiously. ‘Why?’

‘Uplifting Humanity resulted in the destruction of the Xinti. Surely that would make it all seem like rather a bad idea?’

‘One could argue that it was hubris that killed the Xinti. They thought they could play as gods among the “lesser” races of the galaxy without consequences. What Speaker said regarding Memory was true. Both she and I argued for a slower progression when it came to Humans, but we were overridden by our masters.’

‘They paid a pretty heavy price for doing that.’

‘Not really,’ Evolution replied, her tone matter-of-fact. ‘Those responsible for the acceleration of Kha’dag Yrimaga after you were lost survived here through the war. Chief Scientist Magdigan eventually broke down under the knowledge that he had killed his race. Grand Scientist Onakad, who was head of the Herosian project, continued to believe that he was right until he ended. His opinion was that the Xinti should have survived, if they were worthy to do so. Evolution, you see. To him it was the only true driving force in the universe.’

‘So you opposed my… uplift?’

‘Yours? No. We believed that thorough observation of Humanity would determine whether they could be trusted to move out into the galaxy without hurting others or themselves. Chief Scientist Aktana, who led the project, was a strong advocate of caution.’ Evolution paused for a second before adding, ‘He was lost with the Agroa Gar.’

‘And this Magdigan, the one who took over, wasn’t so cautious?’

‘Chief Scientist Magdigan was a disciple of Grand Scientist Onakad. He wanted to prove himself worthy of his new position, and to prove his mentor’s theories correct. He accelerated the project despite my and Memory’s recommendations. The AI directly responsible for the project believed that the information available suggested that Humanity was a less acquisitive, more responsible race than the Herosians. She agreed to Chief Scientist Magdigan’s demands.’

Aneka frowned. ‘So, why am I not talking to her as well, or instead?’

‘Sleep Brings Renewal to All Things believed that Humanity could still follow the right path. She sought a dispensation from our standing orders should Humanity rise from the ashes of the Great War. Grand Scientist Onakad granted her wishes and gave orders that she should be allowed to leave here to observe and direct Humanity if their civilisation renewed. She left here before the Lorenti Federation was founded, but the knowledge of where this place was was removed from her memory and we have had no communication with her since.’

‘Oh. How was it done? I mean, how did you actually turn me into… this?’

‘Are you sure you want to know?’

‘No, but tell me anyway.’

‘As you wish. The process was developed during a phase in the history of the Xinti where they were facing a threat to the entire species. A plague was spreading rapidly through the populace. The victims died horribly and quickly, and for all their technology they could do nothing to stop it. A Scientist, Ykriba, had been working on a technique to convert animal brains into software to make greater analysis possible and this was seen as the only way forward. Obviously, he was unconcerned about the survival of the animals, and the Xinti were facing certain death, so they used Ykriba’s technique to save as many Xinti as possible. They needed something quick too.

‘Essentially, nanomachines are used to disassemble the brain, collecting data on every neuron and connection, and every aspect of the brain required to create a very detailed model of it. This raw data, and it is a lot of raw data, was then run through a… I think you might call it a “ghost compiler.” It converts the data into a functioning program to execute on a brain computer, and a data store containing the memories. Download that into the computer and the rest is a matter of cybernetics.’

‘Right. So they reduced my brain to soup and pulled out the meaning. You’re right, maybe I’d have been better off not knowing.’ Aneka looked around at the map of project sites. ‘There are a lot of dots up there, and that’s without the two projects I know of. I thought there were only three sentient races in this part of the galaxy, aside from the Xinti.’

‘The uplift projects were more varied than the two you know of. Three worlds with no life were seeded with biological material to study evolution from its most basic level. Those projects were to take millions of years, but Xinti were considered immortal. Four more where life existed in a basic form were pushed towards more complex forms. On two worlds where complex life had already developed, various factors believed to favour intelligence were introduced to test evolutionary theories. One of those resulted in a self-aware, tool-using species which is still developing.’

‘That sounds like a big plus to the uplift projects.’

‘Yes, but by contrast two attempts to promote scientific development in young intelligent species resulted in catastrophic conflict. One of those races is now extinct, the other is still living in the after-effects of a nuclear war which almost wiped them out.’

‘But you kept trying. You kept on pushing to see whether you could make things better.’

‘Science is a process, Aneka. Formulate a theory, test the theory. If the test does not validate the theory, reformulate and retest.’

‘And that’s what was wrong with the Xinti,’ Aneka replied. ‘They turned science into their religion. They had absolute belief in it. I’ve never seen anything good come out of that kind of fanaticism.’

Evolution bowed her head and the galaxy map folded itself into the table. ‘Yes, Aneka Jansen. I am very much afraid that you are correct.’

~~~

‘Why the sudden change?’ Monkey said. ‘I mean, Aneka and Gillian are both saying that the Xinti religion was science. They both seem to think that they were a bit amoral about their experiments, but basically they were scientists. The ones we’ve all heard about were fanatical soldiers, warriors. What changed?’

They were all sitting in their makeshift mess eating food which seemed very much as if it had been prepared by hand, and by an expert. Aneka had wondered briefly whether there was an AI called Gourmet who had handled food-related research, but after a few seconds of trying the various dishes she decided she did not care.

‘The Herosians happened,’ Gillian replied. She put down the chopsticks she had been using to eat, rather expertly Aneka thought, and settled back in her seat. ‘When the Xinti were on the rise the Warrior caste was more powerful, but once their empire was established it became more administrative and civil. The Administrative caste was never particularly forward and the Scientists took over, their place cemented by their transfer of the entire race to digital minds to escape some sort of plague. That lasted for… well, around three millennia as far as I can work out. When the Herosians began attacking Xinti worlds and it was discovered that the uplift project had put them in a position to do so, the Warriors began to demand retribution.’

‘And as the war built up, the Warriors became the ascendant power,’ Aneka said. ‘The same sort of change has happened in Human societies throughout history. When there’s a threat the warmongers gain favour.’

‘Quite,’ Gillian agreed. ‘The Federation Military was far stronger when the Federation was first created. As we cleared out resistance, peace settled in and the civil authorities became the primary voice in society.’

‘So the Xinti made the Herosians what they are,’ Delta put in slowly, as though working over what she was hearing, ‘and then the Herosians turned the Xinti into what we know of them from our history.’

‘More or less,’ Gillian agreed, ‘except that the Xinti simply gave the Herosians the opportunity to be themselves in deep space.’

‘So is that it?’ Delta asked. ‘Lesson learned. We can’t let the technology here out where the Herosians can get their hands on it.’

‘No,’ Aneka said firmly. ‘We keep digging. We keep trying to find a way to make this work until there’s absolutely no hope.’

There was silence for a second and then Drake snapped off a jaunty salute. ‘Yes, ma’am.’ Everyone, including Aneka, burst out laughing, but she still meant what she said.

29.8.524 FSC.

The Garnet Hyde was a mess. The stresses forced on it as the station was dragged through the wormhole were considerable and a number of systems had been compromised. Aneka had wanted to know what the situation was and the ship’s Captain had been happy enough to use the excuse to visit his ship again. Even through the faceplate of his suit, he did not look like a happy man.

The suits they were wearing had been supplied by the AIs and were different from the ones they usually wore. For one thing, they were actually opaque, which Ella had thought was a shame. The helmets which came with them were light and came attached to a backpack which could sustain them in deep space for twelve hours without trouble, or in up to ten atmospheres. Aneka did not need any of the multitude of heads-up displays the thing could project in front of her eyes, but they seemed comprehensive. Drake was using it to interface with the AI he had been provided with as a secretary and Aneka heard him making notes as they moved through the stricken vessel.

There had been a couple of hull breaches, the worst in the area the ship’s central computer occupied. Radiation damage to the computer was, according to the two AIs acting as engineers, terminal. Currently, resolving that issue was being put on hold until the hull was repaired.

‘Speaker told me that they have some ideas about getting us a functional computer,’ Drake told Aneka as they headed down to the engineering section. ‘He said it was moot until we decided what we were doing, and he’s right so I didn’t press the point.’

‘What about life support?’

‘Functional, but currently without power. The reactor wasn’t damaged, but they shut it down when they got it here because there were several exposed cables that took hits. That’s not the big problem.’

The engineering room door was wide open and they stepped through it. Aneka saw what she suspected was the big problem. One of the walls had a large hole in it. ‘That’s through to the warp engine isn’t it?’

‘Uh-huh. There was some sort of power surge. They’re having to cut what’s left of the core out of the space it occupied.’

‘Drake… With no warp engine we are going nowhere anyway.’

The Captain grinned at her. ‘Speaker did tell me what they plan to do there. The Agroa Gar’s drive is repairable and the two ships have about the same mass. They’re going to transplant the engine from there to here. It’ll double our speed.’

‘That’s going to take time though.’

‘Yeah, it is. We’re stuck here for the better part of a month no matter what we decide to do.’ He reached out and ran a gloved hand over one of the service panels. ‘The old girl’s seen better days, but she’ll be better than new when they’ve finished with her. I hope, even if we decide we can’t leave, that we can at least take her out for a spin.’

Aneka smiled and wondered what it was like for Shannon having to share Drake’s affections. ‘I think the AIs want to branch out anyway. Maybe… I mean, even if we stay, maybe we can mount some expeditions out of the system. As long as we stay away from Federation space it should be okay, and it’s a big galaxy.’

‘I knew there was a reason I liked you,’ Drake said, grinning back. ‘Oh, would you do me a favour and check on Shannon for me?’

‘Uh, sure. Why aren’t you doing it yourself?’

‘Because you have a mind she can’t hear.’

~~~

The room Aneka was directed to by Speaker when she asked where Shannon was brought on a sudden attack of geek. It was a big open space in the very heart of the station. There was a door halfway up one wall which let you out onto a walkway, railed on either side. That stretched out to a platform like an elongated diamond shape in the middle. Around the sides of the big chamber were huge blocks of machinery and electronics. The light was pretty dim, and that was likely another reason the psychic was here.

Shannon was lying on the floor near the middle of the room, just in front of the podium-like construct which occupied the centre of the diamond. One leg was propped up at the knee and an arm was draped over her closed eyes. A little time had been spent by various members of the crew arranging for the fabrication of more Jenlay clothing and the pilot was wearing a T-shirt and a pair of running shorts which suited her better, but she did not look particularly happy lying on a hard surface beside an enormous sphere which hung in some sort of suspension field between four large ‘paddles’ stretching down like great hands from the ceiling.

‘That doesn’t look particularly comfortable,’ Aneka commented, kneeling down beside the blonde.

‘It’s bliss,’ Shannon replied without moving her arm or looking up. ‘I’ve got enough worries of my own without having to listen to seven other worried people. Speaker told me that this place is pretty heavily screened and well away from all the areas with people in.’

‘What is this place?’

Shannon stretched up her eye-shielding arm and pointed at the sphere suspended in the air nearby. ‘Several hundred years ago, that was the city the local Xinti lived in. The computers the AIs occupy are all around us. So many minds and I can’t hear a single one. Like I said, bliss.’

‘It’s really that bad?’

Shannon nodded. ‘And I don’t have my painkillers.’

‘I’m sure the AIs could give you something.’

‘Yeah, but I’m better off without. If it gets bad I’ll ask, but… I did say I was mildly addicted, right. This is an excuse to stop. It’s just… Everyone’s worried about what’s going to happen. They all want to leave, so they worry they’ll have to stay. They worry that if they leave it’ll be a disaster. Monkey worries that we’ll get back and be locked up for good. I hadn’t thought of that one.’ Aneka said nothing; she had thought of that eventuality. ‘Abraham can actually envisage what the military could do with some of this technology. He’s not saying anything aloud, but if anyone is going to be hard to convince to go, it’s him.’

‘I can’t imagine what it’s like, having to deal with everyone else’s problems as well as your own.’

Shannon, obviously feeling far better out of range of the others’ thoughts, grinned. ‘Normally it’s not this bad. Everyone’s focussed on the decision we’ve got to make so it’s all far clearer.’

‘That figures, I guess.’ Aneka looked up at the sphere hanging in empty air above them. ‘So… that’s a computer that executes Xinti minds?’

‘A lot of them at once, yeah. Speaker said something about a multi-dimensional quantum processing system and hyper-parallelism. I glazed over a bit.’

‘So I’ve got something like that in my head?’

‘I guess. A way smaller one. Also, that one’s super-cooled so I wouldn’t touch it.’

‘I wonder what the difference is. I mean, what makes that different from the computers the AIs execute on.’

‘No idea. You want answers to that you’d be best talking to Abraham and Reality.’

Aneka wrinkled her nose. ‘If I do that it’ll take me two weeks to work out what they said.’

Shannon laughed and sat up, crossing her legs. She looked a lot happier. ‘It’s not like most of us have a lot to do.’

~~~

Aneka got the impression that Reality was developing something of a fondness for the old Jenlay physicist. When she asked her question they looked at each other and she could see them thinking. The thoughts were probably something like, ‘How do we explain this to the girl?’ Wallace, she thought, had impressed the AI with the speed he was picking up the science the AIs had been working on for a millennium, but explaining something like this to a soldier…

‘I get that I’m going to have a bit of difficulty in grasping this stuff,’ she said. ‘Just try and I’ll ask questions, and hopefully I’ll be able to grasp the concept if not the details.’

‘In a way,’ Wallace said, ‘the problem is not explaining it to you, but in actually differentiating the two.’

Reality nodded. ‘Both systems are a complex amalgam of photonic, electronic, and quantum components. The systems in the brain machines are so complex that they use multi-dimensional superposition to allow increased amounts of parallelism, thus allowing more minds to be executed within a, relatively, smaller amount of hardware. Essentially the machine exists in more than three dimensions.’

‘But that just lets them house all their minds in one computer and still provides the processing power necessary,’ Wallace went on. ‘At a basic level, the components in your brain do not differ substantially from those in the computer Reality runs on.’

‘The arrangement is different, however,’ Reality said. ‘I execute on an array of general purpose processors. Some are relatively traditional, others qubit based. Your brain and the structures within the one in the Core Room are built from a number of units with varying, specific purposes. Then there is the… software, if you will. Technically it is entirely possible to deconstruct my executable and memory, and use the information to determine exactly how I would react to any set of stimuli. No one has ever found a way to do that with the result of a brain map, even though your mind is created as a program which executes on a computer.’

Aneka frowned. ‘You said, “Technically it is entirely possible.”’

The androgynous figure’s face shifted, thin, grey lips forming a smile. ‘Your selection for your role was clearly a wise choice.’

‘Aneka is a great deal smarter, and certainly more observant, than your typical soldier,’ Wallace agreed, smirking at her.

‘Yes, technically. The scientists would never openly admit it; it would have caused some issues in the structure of Xinti society, but many of the AIs they built were too complex to be defined in such a deterministic manner. That was the basis for their social hierarchy, placing Xinti above artificial creations. To admit that it was, essentially, a prejudice would have disrupted their culture.’

‘So, really, you’re saying that they were no different from a complex robot?’ Aneka said, her stomach sinking. ‘That I am basically a robot who thinks it’s a woman?’

Reality nodded. She could tell he could tell that this was the wrong thing to do, but his nature was highly fact-oriented and he would not deny a basic fact.

Wallace had other ideas. ‘What, my dear girl, do you think I am?’

‘Human,’ Aneka replied. ‘Jenlay anyway.’

‘What is a Human if not an organic machine operated by a complex, organic neural network? As I understand it, there was once a definition of life involving respiration and reproduction, and a few other characteristics, but when Humanity, as you call us, left Old Earth they discovered things existed which were clearly a form of life, but did not fit the known model. We junked the model and came up with, “Life is something you know when you see it.” Not very scientific, but far more pragmatic.’ He gave her an intent stare and spoke slowly to emphasise his next statement. ‘You are very clearly a sentient life form. Perhaps, and I mean perhaps, you are not quite the Aneka Jansen who lived on Old Earth before the Xinti War, but you are who Aneka Jansen is now.’

‘Perhaps one of them,’ Reality said.

Aneka’s gaze snapped around to the AI so fast he actually sat back in his seat. ‘I’m sorry?’ she asked.

‘When the Agroa Gar went missing a new body was constructed and your mind mapping installed. It is unlikely that that one survives to this day, but not entirely…’

‘You did what?!’ Aneka roared.

‘You would have to speak to Evolution to learn the details,’ Reality said, clearly taken aback by her apparent anger.

‘Fuck yes,’ Aneka snarled and headed for the door.

~~~

‘She was designated “Yrimtan,”’ Evolution said, her voice level despite the glower Aneka was directing at her. ‘Not an exact copy of you since she had a different purpose, one defined by Chief Scientist Magdigan. She was to direct the process of Humanity’s uplift from within. This was his answer to the Herosian issue and one both Memory and myself considered insufficient. However, his wishes naturally overrode our views. She was reinserted into Earth society, apparently having recovered from a coma, and returned to your home.’

Aneka’s anger stalled in her mind and was replaced by confusion. She had never made it home, but Aneka Jansen had. Her family had been spared the loss. ‘What happened to her?’

‘Her mission was initially a great success. Her reports indicated that your brother, Alan, had been selected to be her agent, for want of a better word. She believed his skills in science would be an excellent front. She directed him, secretly, to write a paper which resulted in him being inducted into the team examining the warp core we dropped on Earth, and he played a pivotal role in ensuring that the technology was understood and could be replicated.’

‘Alan always was clever,’ Aneka said, smiling at the memories. ‘He would have loved being on that project. He had a thing for science fiction.’

Evolution nodded, but her expression was sad. ‘When the Warrior caste set about bombing Earth, they gave no thought to retrieving Yrimtan. They were, according to them, correcting a terrible mistake and they considered her part of that mistake. It is very unlikely that she survived the assault.’

‘I’m tough as Hell,’ Aneka replied. ‘I might have been able to.’

‘She was built to similar specifications, but not quite the same. Her resistance to environmental hazards was not as great. The weapon and shield you have were replaced by neural induction equipment which allowed her to instruct a Human mind directly. That was how she influenced Alan to write his paper and gave him insights he might otherwise have not had.’ The AI saw Aneka’s face tighten. ‘Her touch was subtle, Aneka. It had to be. She selected your brother because he was suitably inclined towards the path she needed and gave only “pushes” in the right direction. As you said, he would have enjoyed the work and was quite clever enough to grasp most of it. If she had had to change him significantly, someone would have detected the change.’

‘Huh. I’m not sure I like this, Eve. Any of it. But I can’t change it and it happened a thousand years ago… I need some time to think this through.’

‘Of course, Aneka. If there is anything I or Speaker can do to help…’

‘I’ll let you know.’

~~~

‘Two Anekas,’ Ella said, grinning. ‘Think of the possibilities.’

The effort involved in getting a good punch in with the girl nestled in her arms dissuaded Aneka from trying. ‘This isn’t funny.’

‘No, not really, but there’s nothing you can do about it and she probably died an age ago. You’re alive and here, and this doesn’t really change anything does it?’

‘No, except…’

‘Except?’

‘She went home. She got to see my family, live my life. It’s like an imposter took my place. Except that she probably had a better copy of my memories than I do so it’s more like I’m the imposter, the fake.’

‘You’re not a fake.’

‘I…’

‘You’re not,’ Ella stated flatly. ‘Even if you’re not the Aneka you were, you are you. Does it really matter whether you’ve a perfect set of memories? Jenlay have imperfect memories. It’s a fact, a basic function of the way we store memories. They don’t even stay the same. My memory of an event is a function of what happened, and how I perceive it, and how my mind has changed since the event, and a hundred different factors that influence its recall. Who I am now is what’s important, and the same is true of you.’

Aneka gave that a second of thought. ‘Sometimes having an intelligent girlfriend with a background in psychology is a real pain.’

‘Uh-huh. Of course, I can tell you this stuff, but I can’t make you believe it.’

‘No, but it helps.’

‘Uh-huh. So I’m going to keep telling you as often as I think is needed until you do believe it.’

‘You’re mean,’ Aneka responded, pouting.

Ella giggled. ‘Yes, but only when you’re being stubborn.’

1.9.524 FSC.

‘You seem rather more sanguine with your situation, Aneka.’ Evolution was smiling, looking pleased at the change. Aneka had asked to meet her in her project lab to continue their discussion, and she was feeling better.

‘I’ve had a couple of days of people reminding me that I’m a real person. Ella’s been very persistent about it.’

‘Miss Narrows, despite her youth, has a remarkable talent for seeing to the root of people’s problems.’

‘She’s forty years older than I am. Or I was before I became ageless.’

‘Compared to the AIs here and the Xinti who created us, she is a baby.’

‘Huh. Compared to you even Abraham is little more than a child, but Reality seems to think he’s doing a good job.’

‘Touché,’ Evolution replied, the smile sliding to more of a grin.

‘You said the Xinti who lived here died?’ It was time to get to business.

‘They chose to stop living.’

‘How? I mean, as far as I can tell I’m basically immortal. I could probably quit eating and drinking and let my power run down, but I’m not even sure that would finish me…’

‘Hmm… How to explain. The basic facts first, I think.’ She paused, apparently considering how to start. ‘When a Xinti chose to cease, their memories were serialised into a database. It was considered rude to destroy your memories along with yourself. Then the… program, the part of the mind which thought, was erased along with any backups.’

‘They can’t be, uh, reconstructed from their memories?’

‘True memory is more than just a collection of facts. There is context, emotional connection. And a mind is more than simply a collection of memories. Without the connections between the entries in the database, and the software to interpret them in the manner that particular mind would, you don’t have the same individual. We have your memories stored for reference, but we could no longer construct another you.’

Aneka laughed. ‘You probably have a better copy than I do. You can’t fill the holes in my memory from that database, can you?’

‘There is no way to integrate the data. You have lived and experienced change since the image was taken. We could give you the database, as a reference so to speak, but if you chose to take a copy of it you should realise that what you will have will be raw facts.’

‘It’d be better than the gaps I have now.’

‘Would it? What if you discover memories of a lover you thought was your perfect mate. You would know how you felt about this person, but would no longer have any feeling for them.’

‘Oh. I guess I see your point. I’ll think about it.’

‘I get the feeling there was something else you wished to ask.’

‘Uh, yeah. I got the impression that you thought there would be survivors on Earth. I know the Herosian home world was totally destroyed…’

‘The Warrior caste leaders, even in their zeal, recognised that the Herosians were more responsible for the war than Humanity and the Torem. The Herosian home world was impacted with planetoids large enough to reduce it to rubble. The Torem home world was long gone. Their sun was unstable. Corona discharges incinerated their planet less than a century after the Xinti escaped their solar system. Earth was subjected to a bombardment using mass drivers and nuclear weapons. Orbital facilities were destroyed, communication systems were obliterated. Humanity believed their world entirely lost, and the Warriors considered going back to finish the job an unnecessary step, especially since they believed the Torem were bringing weapons to the front which could be a danger. As things played out, they never got the chance to return so it is possible that people survived there. We don’t know. We’ve never sent probes into that area of space.’

Aneka nodded. ‘If we decide to leave, I’d like to take that database of project sites with me. There’s no location for Earth, but there’s more information there than the Jenlay have.’

‘You’re sure you want to go back there? It won’t be the world you remember.’

‘No, I’m not sure, but I’d like the option to try and I’m pretty sure the Federation would like to see what’s there.’

Evolution nodded. ‘Yes, I’d imagine they would.’

‘There’s one other thing,’ Aneka said, a faint smile playing over her lips. ‘That gun you gave me, it’s great at what it does, but it’s not very precise. What else have you got?’

The AI laughed. ‘I’m sure there are other options, but for that you’ll need to talk to War.’

~~~

Greatest Heights of Honour, Lowest Depths of Shame appeared as a woman: Aneka was a little surprised. At least she was until she began speaking to the AI in charge of coordinating and controlling weapon design projects. War was a fit, powerful woman, well capable of handling the array of melee weapons that decorated the walls of the lab set aside for their design and construction. Her hair was short and blonde and she wore a short tunic rather than the longer robes many of the others dressed in. A Spartan warrior, that was what War looked like, but she was far from an advocate of the use of weapons.

‘The Warrior caste felt that the blaster you were given was too imprecise,’ War told her. ‘They felt that a lighter weapon would be more surgical, and also more fitting to a member of their caste. However, the anti-proton blaster is a flexible weapon, able to handle a variety of engagements. They agreed that giving you that would be practical.’

Aneka nodded. ‘But surgical is what I need a lot of the time. With the sighting system and targeting software I have I can hit a penny at the distance I can see it, but with that blaster I’d wipe out everything in the neighbourhood. I can’t take out a target among civilians without hurting the civilians. There’s this… intelligence and security person in the Federation who likes to drop me into that kind of situation.’

War nodded. ‘A noble use of weaponry. I find myself approving of this and will assist you. Come this way.’ She headed for a door at the back of the lab which led onto a room which was clearly a test firing range. There were targets at one end backed by a wall of some sort of ceramic material. There were also cabinets set against the nearest wall and from one of these War took a huge rifle and a smaller weapon which looked like a slim machine pistol. ‘These were the weapon of choice of warriors seeking to prove their marksmanship. They are projectile weapons rather than beam generators and so require more skill to use. They are both very precise, but the smaller one has a rate of fire which also makes it useful for suppression.’ She held out the rifle. ‘Try this.’

The gun was lighter than Aneka had expected, given its size, and as soon as she wrapped her hand around the grip the usual heads-up display appeared in-vision. It was loaded and Aneka blinked when the ammo count showed a thousand rounds ready to be fired. She set her feet, sighted through the scope at a target down the range, and squeezed the trigger. There was almost no recoil, but at the far end of the room, two hundred metres away, the centre of the target exploded in a flare of light, smoke issuing from the hole.

‘That’s more precise?!’ Aneka lifted the gun to her shoulder, engaging the safety, and blinked at the AI.

War laughed. ‘The weapon lacks the explosive force of your blaster. It utilises a binary force pulse, something like the mechanism your palm weapon uses. The first evacuates a channel in the air down which the second propels a high-density dart at a reasonable fraction of light speed. Inertial compensation suppresses the resulting recoil. On impact, the dart is converted into plasma generating a super-heated, piercing jet. It has very good armour penetration and obviously causes extensive damage, but there is relatively little chance of hitting someone behind the target. Effective range is some four thousand metres.’ She offered the pistol. ‘Perhaps you would find a lower power weapon of more utility.’

Sure enough, the smaller weapon punched a smaller hole in a second target. It had an auto-fire setting, however, and Aneka switched to that, steadying the gun in both hands and holding it at her hip. There was a burst of fire, a noise like ripping cloth, and the man-shaped target fell into two pieces. The cut surfaces could be seen smouldering from the other end of the room.

A slow smile spread over Aneka’s face. ‘I’ll take both,’ she said.

3.9.524 FSC.

If the shuttle had been of Jenlay design they would have been floating. As it was they were comfortably seated as Drake eased it out of the hangar bay doors and they could easily look around to get their first look at the place they had been living in for the last couple of weeks.

Negral Science Station was huge, a vast, more or less cylindrical construction a little broader in the middle than the ends. It stood upright in its orbit among what appeared to be an almost entirely empty solar system.

‘They used almost the entire system as material for construction,’ Wallace said as the ship swung around the huge, grey station towards where the star should be. ‘There’s one gas giant left out at seven-point-nine AUs.’

‘Speaker told me it’s a graveyard,’ Shannon commented. ‘There are dozens of dead ships orbiting there left over from the refugees who escaped here after the war.’

‘We should try to take the time to go out there,’ Gillian suggested. ‘That could be an invaluable source of genuine Xinti artefacts.’

Aneka laughed. ‘Doc… You’re currently living in a huge artefact and you want more?’

Ella giggled. ‘You’re seriously asking that question?’

‘Okay, fair enough. What do you think, boss?’ Aneka turned towards Bashford. ‘Could we set up an expedition?’

‘I think,’ Bashford replied, ‘that I’d like to know why Abraham brought us out here.’

‘To discuss our future,’ Wallace said. He turned his head towards the pilots’ seats. ‘Captain, would you swing us around towards the system’s star?’

The vessel turned again, swinging to the right and pitching up a little at the nose. ‘Uh, sure,’ Drake said, ‘but I’m dead reckoning. I can’t see… Must be a brown dwarf or something.’

‘No, it’s not,’ Wallace replied, ‘but it is an example of the kind of technology we would be exposing to the world we’ve come from.’

Gillian peered out through the front window of the shuttle towards the barely visible orb around which the station and gas giant were orbiting. ‘Abraham, you’re being obtuse,’ she commented.

‘That,’ Wallace said, ‘is a strange star.’

‘I’m going to assume,’ Aneka said, ‘that that isn’t a comment on it being weird. From here it looks pretty weird.’

‘Oh, I think weird is almost a valid description. A strange star is a quark star containing strange matter.’ He held up a hand to forestall the obvious question. ‘Strange quarks are found in hadrons, some hadrons. Up and down quarks are more common. Strange stars are composed of degenerate matter made from all three, and they generally form from neutron stars which collapse further under their own gravity.’

‘But this one didn’t?’ Gillian guessed.

‘It used to be a brown dwarf. They took apart the solar system so that they could trap as much of its energy as possible, and they used that energy to enhance the star’s gravity to the point of collapse. The Xinti here, and the AIs who took over from them, have the technology to do engineering on stars!’

‘Could that be weaponised?’ Drake asked. He had settled the ship into a slow drift and turned his seat around to face into the passenger compartment.

Wallace shook his head. ‘It takes vast amounts of energy. The stellar trap was the only way and that takes years to construct.’

‘But they have other things as big,’ Aneka said. She wanted them all to leave Negral, but keeping what she had found out from War from them seemed wrong. ‘War has a theoretical study showing how a wormhole can be used to create a nova. They have the plans for star-killer gamma-ray weapons. That’s the big stuff, but the smaller weapons are almost as scary. They have beams that, uh, act on the strong and weak nuclear force?’

‘Essentially disintegrators,’ Wallace supplied.

‘Uh-huh. There’s a cannon that fires some particle that passes right through solid matter and then decays into energetic particles. Armour is useless against it. It rips the target apart from the inside. They have force warheads, the plasma bombs like the ones the robots used to kill themselves, implosion weapons that crush everything in range into a dust particle. Half of this stuff has never even been built, but War was absolutely sure they would work. She seemed almost as horrified as I was by what some of the things they’ve invented can do.’

‘What you’re saying then,’ Drake said, ‘is that we can’t leave. It’s far too unsafe to let this stuff get into the hands of anyone who might use it.’

‘I don’t think we can call it just on that,’ Gillian replied. ‘They have medical equipment we could only dream of. Tissue regenerators that make our own nanotech solutions seem like children’s toys. Their nanotechnology could make everyone entirely immune to disease. We were injected with those before they put us in the arboretum. They were worried about the effects of some of the plants on our systems. Their surgical robots can perform operations at the cellular level. I would be dead right now without that. We did not manage to traverse the wormhole entirely undamaged. You’ve all seen how much better their control of gravity is. That same disintegrator technology can be used to stabilise atoms. Nuclear weapons can be rendered inoperable at range. Force screens can block even those particle beams Aneka mentioned.’

‘They have an amazing understanding of the mind,’ Ella put in, ‘both at an individual level and on a larger scale. We wouldn’t be going back unarmed when it came to stopping misuse of the technology.’

‘If that wormhole tech can be made to work in other places it could revolutionise space travel,’ Shannon said.

‘And communications,’ Wallace agreed. ‘Real-time, lag-free links between star systems. That would be possible using far less energy than that required to move something the size of a spaceship.’

‘This isn’t going to be simple is it?’ Aneka commented.

Silence descended on the cabin as the team considered their situation. It was Monkey who broke it.

‘You know… I can’t help thinking that…’ He stopped and everyone looked at him. ‘Well, we’re the only ones who know this place exists. And if we go back, we’ll be the only people who know where it is.’

‘They’ll want to know where we’ve been, David,’ Gillian said.

‘Oh, I wasn’t saying we keep it a secret, but we can control how the research gets handed out. The AIs can be the gatekeepers. Give out information that will help and keep the dangerous stuff behind locked doors. Talking to them is going to be a pretty big political problem as it is. The Administration would want to take it slowly.’

‘Your son appears to have inherited his father’s pragmatism and strategic thinking, Gillian,’ Wallace said after a second.

Gillian gave her son the sort of smile only a proud mother can give her child. ‘I think that’s all David.’ She sobered. ‘We are going to need to plan this very carefully and have everything agreed with our hosts before we leave.’

Drake shrugged. ‘Even with the engineering skills this place has it’s going to be almost a month before the Hyde is ready to leave. We’ve got plenty of time to plot.’

6.9.524 FSC.

The feeling of tension which had been hanging over everyone on the station had turned into nervous excitement. With the decision made, it had become apparent that even the AIs had been tense about the choice the Jenlay would eventually make. There had been a small ceremony, of sorts, in the Forum where Aneka had officially countermanded the order to stay hidden and stated that they should use their own discretion regarding how they should behave in future. With that over it had been like someone had lifted a blanket off the station’s populace; everyone, man, woman, robot, and alien, had suddenly seemed happier.

There had been an urge to start planning for the Hyde’s return there and then, and that had happened to some extent with the Jenlay setting down what they thought the problems were and hearing what the AIs thought of them, but both Speaker and Ella had decided that it would be a good idea for people to engage in a few other activities. The stress was relieved, sure, but there was still a need to relax properly afterwards.

Aneka was not sure that a trip out to the ship graveyard around Negral’s gas giant counted as relaxation, but it was different and it was the kind of thing that Gillian liked doing. Besides which, with the new suits the AIs had provided, Bashford was willing to actually let the archaeologist go out on a field mission in vacuum and it had turned into something of a couple’s event.

Drake and Shannon were handling things on the shuttle they had been given. Slightly larger than the one they had used to hold their meeting, this one was actually a boarding vessel which had been used as transport for refugees from the graveyard. What that really meant was that it had a docking tube designed to latch onto a hull and allow forced entry. Since the ships out there had been sitting in space, unmanned and unpowered, for over a millennium there was a very high probability that they were going to have to force entry. Once that had been achieved, however, the two pilots could sit back in relative comfort to wait for the EVA team’s return. Aneka had absolutely no doubt that Shannon would have Drake out of his suit inside of two minutes; well that was as good a form of relaxation as any.

Gillian, Bashford, Aneka, and Ella were handling the EVA. Bashford and Ella seemed to be looking forward to getting their boss out in a vacuum suit and Aneka wondered how often the archaeologist had to put up with deferring to Ella for the slightly more dangerous circumstances of a hostile environment site. Gillian certainly seemed very keen to get into their chosen target; there was a hint of girlish enthusiasm about her as she watched the great ball of the gas giant with its scudding, dull red clouds grow in the front viewing screen.

The image was entirely false, of course. At this range from a star that gave off essentially nothing in the way of visible light, the giant was in pitch darkness. The only thing illuminating the world and its system of moons, and the far smaller dots of spacecraft still in orbit, was the radar system from the shuttle. However, sensors collected chemical composition data as they closed with the planet, and the on-board computers gave colour where there was no light. And Aneka frowned a little as the first signs of the ships beyond a simple marker appeared on the screen.

‘Does anyone else hear… singing?’

The three Jenlay in the passenger cabin looked at each other. ‘No,’ Ella said. ‘No, uh, singing. What kind of signing?’

‘It’s not quite… Well, signing’s probably the wrong word. It’s like… It sounds crazy but it’s what I’d imagine sirens sound like.’

‘The creature of Greek myth?’ Gillian asked. Aneka nodded. ‘Of course, the myth moved on into space, but no one has ever proved the existence of the Xyriana.’

‘And they will continue to remain unproven,’ Al said. ‘What you’re hearing is the magnetosphere of the planet.’

‘Oh,’ Aneka said aloud. ‘Al says I’m hearing the planet’s magnetosphere.’

‘Sorry,’ Drake said from the forward cabin. ‘I should have mentioned as we moved in. This place has a pretty active radio output. Bash, you’ll want to make sure you’re checking your dosage at regular intervals.’

‘Al, give me a display of everyone’s radiation dose meters,’ Aneka instructed silently. A small bar appeared at the edge of her vision field showing colour-coded numeric values. They were all green and showing zero figures at the moment. ‘I’ve got that,’ she said aloud. Bashford grinned at her.

‘We’re starting to get telemetry on the ships,’ Shannon announced. ‘I’m reading ten… fifteen… twenty-seven… wow!’

The display began to show dots with trails following them showing the orbits of vessels around the planet. It really was a ship graveyard. Hundreds of ships were circling the world, apparently in very stable orbits since they had been there for a millennium.

‘Most of them are small vessels, under a hundred tonnes,’ Shannon commented.

‘With warp drives?’ Aneka asked, surprised.

‘They could build smaller first-generation drives as well as the second-generation ones,’ Gillian explained.

‘So they ran here in whatever they could get their hands on.’

‘That’s what it looks like,’ Shannon agreed.

‘The war had turned against them,’ Gillian said. ‘Human and Herosian forces were hunting down every Xinti they could get their guns on.’

‘And those who knew about this place ran here,’ Aneka finished for her.

‘Some of them in something a bit bigger,’ Shannon said as a schematic of a ship appeared on the screens. The scale indicated something over six hundred metres in length. Weapon turrets decorated the hull along two-thirds of the length and there was what looked like the mouth of a huge gun jutting out from under its sloping prow. ‘Database says it’s a… Mordra Kai-class battleship. Am I pronouncing that right?’

‘Yes,’ Aneka told her. ‘It means “Great Beast.”’

‘As I recall,’ Gillian put in, ‘it was the largest warship they constructed. That main gun was one of the most feared weapons in their arsenal. That one would probably be our best target.’

‘Setting course,’ Drake said. ‘Shannon, give us a tight lidar scan on that one.’

‘I can do a bit better,’ Shannon replied. ‘We’ve got a full array of Xinti sensors here… And it’s not exactly doing us a huge amount of good. The hull on that thing is thick. Do you recognise any of these materials?’

‘A laminate of hyper-dense matter and mono-crystalline layers,’ Gillian told her. ‘I think you’re reading the outer layer. Likely some form of degenerate matter like neutronium, which is why you don’t recognise it.’

‘Well there’s no electromagnetic signature. The thing is powered down and dead. I am reading a void in the forward section. Looks like an open hangar bay.’

Drake glanced at one of the displays in front of him. ‘That sounds like our best bet for entry. Correcting course now. Better get ready; we’ll be entering the bay in… three minutes.’

The passenger compartment became a hive of industry as the door to the pilots’ cabin closed. Bashford handed out helmets and Gillian put hers on with a gleeful, rather child-like haste, and Bashford double-checked it though he was grinning as he did so. Aneka checked her equipment, putting her own helmet on last, and then checked that Ella’s gear was properly fitted.

‘I’ve done this before, you know,’ Ella said over the intercom.

‘This is different gear. I just want to be sure it’s set right.’

‘You’re just making a show because Bash is.’

‘Uh-huh. Problem?’

Ella giggled, an odd sound over the radio. ‘No. You can check me over any time you like.’

‘If you two have finished…’ Bashford said.

Aneka gave him a grin, her attention turning to the window on the port side. Lights from the shuttle were playing over the interior of a hangar bay which could have held the Garnet Hyde a few thousand times, but now was entirely empty. The strange song of the gas giant, a strange, almost symphonic tune, the chords winding around each other with a background modulation she could not describe, had been reduced to a whisper by the dense hull of the ship they were entering.

‘I’m reading some old allotropic carbon deposits on sections of the interior hull,’ Shannon told them. ‘Looks like something burned pretty fiercely in here and they never got a chance to clean up.’

‘Fire in a vacuum?’ Aneka asked.

‘It can happen,’ Bashford replied. ‘Burning is an oxidation process. Some fuels can burn without exterior oxygen, or a ship’s internal atmosphere can feed it.’

‘There,’ Gillian said, pointing out a structure on one of the side walls. ‘Drake, do you see that observation window? Must be a traffic control room or something. We can probably breach the hull there.’

‘I see it,’ Drake said and the shuttle slid towards it with no sound of thrusters. Aneka was still not used to the silence of the Xinti reactionless drives, but they were certainly efficient.

‘Getting chemical analysis data,’ Shannon said. ‘The atmosphere’s completely vented within the ship. Oh, and I found the design plans for this beast. I’m transmitting them to your suit computers.’

Al was faster than the Jenlay at handling the data; within a second Aneka had a map in-vision showing the area at the side of the hangar bay and the point they were likely to breach. ‘Looks like you were right, Gillian. That’s the main control room for the bay. The flight deck is forwards about twenty metres and up two decks.’

‘Habitation?’ Gillian asked.

‘Amidships, maybe two hundred metres to the rear.’

‘Given the probability that the bulkhead doors are sealed,’ Bashford mused as he manned the controls for the boarding tube, ‘our best bet for travelling through the ship is probably going to be the bay housing the main gun.’

Aneka nodded, the schematic in her vision field winding out to show the layout of the full vessel. ‘It runs almost the whole length of the ship. My God that thing must have an enormous amount of power.’

‘A three terra-joule gamma-ray laser,’ Al supplied.

‘I’m sure it has,’ Gillian said, ‘and Abraham would probably enjoy it a great deal, but I’m more interested in the living quarters. That’s where we’ll find out about the people.’

‘Xinti aren’t noted for leaving many personal effects,’ Ella put in, ‘but we may find a few things and they’re always fascinating.’

‘A truly undisturbed site is almost unheard of,’ Gillian added. ‘That’s why the Agroa Gar was so important and this ship has been preserved in a vacuum for almost as long.’

Bashford had been busy. ‘We’ve got a good seal. I’m initiating the cutting beams. We should be through in… less than a minute.’ He sounded impressed. ‘The Xinti could really build boarding ships.’

‘Ape would tell stories about their boarding actions,’ Gillian said. Ape was Monkey’s father, the Captain of an Admiral-class battleship and a source of many horror stories about the Xinti. ‘They were embellished over time, of course, but several of these things latching onto your hull, a horde of warrior-body Xinti charging into your ship…’

‘I’ve seen some of the weapons they used back then,’ Aneka added. ‘I wouldn’t have wanted to face them.’

‘We’re through,’ Bashford told them. ‘I’m evacuating the compartment. Everyone get ready to enter.’

Aneka saw Gillian’s body tensing. It was not apprehension. ‘How long is it since you’ve done something like this, Gillian?’ she asked.

The archaeologist looked around and gave Aneka a timid grin. ‘A couple of decades. Am I that obvious?’

‘A little. Just let me and Bash go first. Just in case.’

For a brief second Gillian looked like she was going to argue. Aneka could see enthusiasm warring with common sense. Gillian could see that Aneka could see it. ‘I’ll be good,’ she said, her cheeks colouring.

Aneka laughed. ‘Honestly? I hope when I’m over a century I’m still as enthusiastic about what I do for a living.’

The door onto the boarding tube parted and slid open, soundless in the vacuum. ‘Aneka,’ Bashford said and she moved forwards, unsnapping the straps on her holsters.

‘Where’s Bessie?’ Ella asked, noticing the slimmer pistols for the first time. Aneka had decided that two of the machine pistols would be better than one and she was strong enough to control them one-handed.

‘Bessie’s best suited for heavy engagements. These are Bridget and Clara, they’re for precision work. Twelve hundred rounds a minute, five hundred round clip. Muzzle velocity is around three per cent of light speed.’ She moved down the tube, eyes scanning the far end until she was through and clambering over the fallen circle of transparent plastic that was lying in the control room.

‘Uh… That sounds very precise.’

‘They’ll take your eye out; Bessie takes your head off. We’re clear. I’m showing no signs of any electromagnetic radiation in my frequency range.’

Gillian appeared beside her as if by magic; Bashford had, perhaps wisely, allowed her to go ahead of him to at least be second onto the new find. Her gaze swept slowly around the room and then she moved over to one of the dark consoles, running her fingers over the smooth surface.

‘No dust,’ the archaeologist commented. ‘The Agroa Gar had bodies desiccating in it for centuries. This place is clean.’

‘I’ve kind of being trying to avoid thinking about where all the dust came from on the Agroa Gar,’ Aneka commented.

‘Sorry.’

‘All the interior doors are open,’ Ella said.

‘Good,’ Bashford commented. ‘Aneka’s muscles will be pleased. Are we heading straight for habitation?’

‘I don’t think looking at dead control panels will get us far,’ Gillian replied.

‘There should be a vertical access tunnel about forty metres forward,’ Aneka told them. ‘I doubt the lifts are working, but if we turn off the boot grips we can just float down to the spinal mount bay.’

The descent was a simple matter of pushing down the ladder in the tube and they found themselves in a huge, semi-cylindrical chamber containing a metal tube about a metre in diameter. Aneka looked down the length of it from where it exited the hull at the front to where it basically vanished into the perspective in the distance at the rear.

‘That,’ she said, ‘is one big gun.’

‘This is probably just the focussing system,’ Gillian told her. ‘The focal length on gamma-ray lenses tends to be extremely long. The beam generator and amplification system probably takes up less than half of the length of the weapon.’

‘Right. Is there anything you don’t know, Gillian?’

Gillian grinned through her helmet. ‘Many things. The way to the habitation area, for example.’

Aneka grinned back and started towards the stern. ‘It’s this way.’

Another tube with a ladder, this time to be used for pulling up instead of pushing down, brought them up to a maze of corridors. There were doors along many of them with very empty rooms behind them. It seemed that, in most cases, the Xinti who had resided on the ship had left with any belongings they possessed. Gillian and Ella were looking a little disappointed until they reached the medical wing.

There was still no dust. The fourteen bodies were sealed in what looked like vacuum packed plastic, each of them perfectly preserved in whatever state they had been in when they had become useless to the owners. Scanners were produced quickly to go over them and two things became apparent very quickly: all of the corpses had suffered head trauma and they were all the smaller body type the Xinti used. The skin was grey and mottled, the bodies slight and a little short compared to a Jenlay. They had a ridged skull, swept back into points. The sight of them still made Aneka’s fake blood run cold.

‘No combat forms,’ Aneka said as she went over another of the body bags with a scanner.

‘By the end of the war they weren’t using organic bodies for combat,’ Bashford said. ‘The cybernetic chassis were damn near indestructible from what I heard.’

‘We have a couple of examples in the University Museum,’ Ella added. ‘The one you won’t go in because of the Xinti exhibits?’

‘I do not avoid the museum because of the Xinti exhibits,’ Aneka replied, still mostly concentrating on the scanner.

‘Then why do you avoid it? I keep suggesting we go.’

‘Yeah… and then you decide to stay in bed instead of going because you’ve seen it all.’

‘Oh… Not every… Well, maybe.’

‘So,’ Gillian said as the final readings were passed through to her suit computer and the AI collated them, ‘fourteen bodies, all with some form of damage to the skull which penetrated or impacted the brain.’

‘And if the brain was damaged,’ Aneka added, nodding slowly, ‘that would actually kill the Xinti within. But why bring the bodies back here and then just leave them on the ship like this?’

‘The Xinti had no culture of funerary rites,’ Ella said. ‘I asked Speaker about it. Given that they were all dead I thought there might have been graves, or a memorial wall, or… something.’

‘I know the ones who decided to end themselves were kind of stored as databases of memories,’ Aneka put in. ‘So I guess that’s a bit like a memorial. Anyone else can always access the raw memories of the dead Xinti. They have mine in storage too.’

‘Remember that the Xinti had long ago given up the concept of a permanent body,’ Gillian said. ‘The real Xinti was the mind, these were nothing more than shells. They probably brought these back in the hope that their minds could be recovered.’

Ella nodded. ‘Either way, there was no need for the bodies afterwards. The physical bodies, in some ways the physical world, was of no interest to the Xinti.’

‘Huh,’ Aneka grunted. ‘You know, I kind of wondered why the AIs didn’t put up objections to us coming here. I mean, this is sort of a war grave. I know they aren’t actually Xinti, but I thought they might think it a bit like desecration. But if the Xinti didn’t care about bodies and graves…’ Something caught her eye, an object sitting beside one of the bodies under a dead console.

‘Precisely,’ Gillian said. ‘To them this is more of a scrapyard than a grave site.’

The object beneath the console was a transparent cylinder of some sort about ten centimetres in height and eight in diameter. It was showing some odd refraction patterns in Aneka’s enhanced vision. She lifted it out and the light from her helmet torches fell onto it, and inside the cylinder an image formed. It showed two Xinti seated together in something a little like an ultra-modern loveseat. One of them had its arm around the other’s shoulders and they were leaning together, clearly a picture of a couple. It reminded Aneka of the kind of family photographs people had taken so that they could be put on the wall, except that this was a small hologram and seemed somehow more intimate.

Gillian gasped. ‘Oh… That is amazing. I don’t think we’ve ever found anything like it before.’

‘A couple,’ Aneka said. ‘Two Xinti in a relationship. It’s weird, but I just hadn’t thought of them like that. Somehow I figured, with the digital minds, that they were… kind of emotionless and logical.’

‘You’re not,’ Ella pointed out. ‘That said, this might be the first proof we’ve ever had that they did still have some sort of personal, romantic feelings for each other.’

Aneka looked at the hologram, turning it from side to side in her hands. ‘Something some naval officer took to remind him of the girl he left behind.’ Her gaze shifted to the body. ‘I wonder if he made it back to her.’

~~~

‘She was called Lishanta,’ Speaker said. He was holding the hologram while seated on one of the curved seats on an island in the Forum. Aneka sat beside him, alone. She had wanted to know. ‘His name was Undrek and it was she who left him behind, not the other way around.’

‘Huh, so much for me not believing in stereotypes.’

The AI smiled at her. ‘We only know what happened from her memories, and I’m sorry to say that they are incomplete. Her mind could not be recovered in full, there was too much damage.’

‘Oh. What about him?’

Speaker looked upwards and off to the right as though thinking, or remembering. ‘They lived on Trevorsh. It was a garden world. They grew bushabli there, it’s…’

‘A type of berry,’ Aneka said. ‘Used in making duksh, yes?’

‘We gave you a good vocabulary. Lishanta was an Administrator, second rank, not a Warrior. Undrek worked on a farm. She was aboard the Bishna Hel, the battleship you found, handling crew well-being. When the war turned against the Xinti, the Bishna Hel spent years on the front lines trying to hold back the fleets of the other races. Trevorsh was attacked by a Herosian fleet during the final years of the war. It had no military value, but they burned it to the ground. There were no survivors. Lishanta heard about it just before the Bishna Hel entered its final battle of the war. During that battle a heavy fighter was badly damaged and came back on board on fire.’

‘There was evidence of a fire in the hangar bay,’ Aneka said.

Speaker nodded. ‘Lishanta should not have been helping get the crew off, but she did. Five Warriors were saved by her actions. She was helping a sixth when an explosion smashed her into a bulkhead. And that is where her memories stop.’ The AI looked down again and smiled. ‘The Warrior caste gave her honorary rank for her actions on that day.’ He held out the hologram to Aneka. ‘I think that this holds more value to you than it does to us. I’m certain that Doctor Gilroy would wish to have it if you do not.’

Aneka took the cylinder, turning it in her hands so that the image of Lishanta and Undrek faced her. ‘Thank you. You know, I got used to thinking of the Xinti the way most of the Jenlay do. They were monsters, or at least amoral scientists who took my life away from me. Most of them were… people.’

‘Even the ones who took your life away, as you put it, had planned to give it back, Aneka. You were not supposed to end up lost in space for centuries.’

‘No, but… When there’s a war, you get used to demonising your opponents. Killing someone is a lot easier when you don’t think they’re entirely Human. I guess that should be “entirely sentient.”’

‘People,’ Speaker suggested. ‘It’s a good term. If you think of your enemies as “not people” then you have no issue with destroying them.’

Aneka nodded. ‘But these were people. And they never got to say goodbye.’

10.9.524 FSC.

Aneka found Evolution in the arboretum, sitting in the clearing they had used for a camp, though the gear had been removed not long after they had left it. The AI was sitting, her legs crossed in front of her, watching the trees.

‘We don’t embody very often,’ Evolution said as Aneka approached her. ‘I think we should do so more often. The Xinti spent long periods in bodies claiming that it gave them a better sense of self. They may have been right.’

‘I’m not sure I’d even want to try being… well, without a body, living in a computer.’ Aneka sat opposite her, mimicking her posture unconsciously.

‘Another difference between us and the Xinti. They existed within a virtual environment when not in a body. We can do the same, but generally we operate fine without the need for any form of external stimuli. They retained a need to think of themselves as beings in an environment. We are software. But you did not come here to discuss our living arrangements.’

‘No, you’re right of course. My memories, the ones you have stored. I’d like a copy.’

‘You’re sure?’

‘I’m not going to access it directly. Al will be my gatekeeper. He’ll have access to the database and if he sees a need for me to know something I’ve forgotten, he’ll give me access.’

‘An effective solution to the problem. I’ll make the data available and Al can download it.’ She seemed to pause, though perhaps only Aneka’s overclocked brain would have perceived it as such. ‘The new computer installation on your vessel has completed its system checks and will be activated in seventeen minutes. I believe you would find it instructive to be there.’

Raising her eyebrows, Aneka climbed to her feet and started for the lift. ‘Instructive?’

‘Interesting at the very least.’

~~~

Speaker had apparently gathered the entire team together for the initiation of the new computer. Everyone was sitting in the mess in vacuum suits, though their helmets were sitting on the table in front of them; the ship was sound enough, and powered enough through an external connection, that the atmosphere processors were working. Engineering was still in a vacuum, but the rear section of the Hyde was sealed off so that the team could operate more comfortably. There was even artificial gravity.

‘Did Speaker actually give any hints about what they’ve done with the computer?’ Aneka asked as she took a seat.

‘No,’ Wallace replied.

Gillian added, ‘I think he was rather enjoying keeping it a secret.’

‘Huh.’ Aneka checked the corner of her vision. ‘Well, according to my clock it should be coming online… now.’

Nothing happened for just long enough that everyone looked at each other wondering whether something had gone wrong, then the wall screen went black and an image appeared in it. Aneka and Cassandra processed what they were seeing before the Jenlay, but it was Aneka who got the word out first.

‘Aggy?’

The golden woman’s face lit up in a perfect smile. ‘Yes, Aneka. I was a research vessel and used to operating the kind of warp drive currently being fitted to the Hyde. The Agroa Gar could never have been a functional ship again. This solution allows me to continue to be what I want to be: a ship in the service of scientific discovery.’ Her gaze swept around the room even though Aneka figured she was not actually looking out of the screen and did not need to. Her expression became uncertain. ‘I hope this will be okay with all of you?’

Drake got his brain in gear. It was his ship, in a manner of speaking. ‘It’s going to take a little getting used to. I can obviously see the advantages. It’s just…’

‘I understand, Captain. I assure you that my loyalty is to my crew. I may be a Xinti creation, but first and foremost I am a ship’s computer. I am now your ship’s computer and my purpose, my… being, is to ensure your safety, the smooth running of the ship, and the thrill of discovery. In that order.’

‘There’ll be some politics,’ Monkey said. Aneka looked at him, expecting to see many emotions, but mostly seeing a sort of resigned annoyance. He looked back and shrugged. ‘There will.’

‘I know. She’ll need to be psychoanalysed like Al was. She’ll need a citizen ID. I was just expecting you to be a bit more… negative about having a Xinti AI running the ship.’

He shrugged again. ‘Maybe if she was actually a Xinti. The AIs here have all been, well, friendly.’

‘I can handle the psychoanalysis immediately,’ Cassandra commented. The words, ‘Just try and stop me,’ were left unspoken.

‘There’s another benefit,’ Shannon said, ‘for Aneka anyway.’

Aneka looked around at her. ‘Oh?’

‘Once she’s declared a functional, volitional AI she can be assigned crew membership…’

‘She’ll basically have to be,’ Drake put in.

‘…and then you won’t have to have anyone else awake with you. Solves your cold-sleep problem.’

‘Well it solves the resource management problem,’ Aneka agreed. ‘How are your conversation skills, Aggy?’

‘I enjoyed having long conversations with my crew during flights,’ Aggy replied.

‘Well, that’s good.’

‘Of course, they were mostly about science. I may have to brush up on my popular music and sex references.’

‘That is not all I talk about.’

‘Oh,’ Aggy replied. ‘I was just working from your conversations with Ella. It’s all you ever seem to talk about.’

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After two days Aggy had become virtually indispensable to everyone except Cassandra and Aneka, and even they were viewing her as a very useful addition to the crew. The AI had collected the data from the individual AIs assigned as PAs to the team and then taken over the role for everyone. The immediate result had been the connection of several notes taken by Wallace, Gillian, and Ella which had confirmed or denied some of their thoughts on Xinti scientific progression. Another result had taken a little longer, and was amusing Aneka.

‘I think you look rather good in glasses,’ Aneka commented as Ella finished getting dressed for the day. ‘Makes you look more serious without taking away from your fundamental cuteness.’

Ella’s cheeks coloured and she reached up unconsciously to adjust the thin frames with their almost invisible lenses. ‘You think?’

‘I’m not qualified to comment on your “cuteness,”’ Aggy said, ‘but I believe glasses have been seen as a sign of studiousness for a long time.’ The point of the glasses was to allow Ella to see Aggy’s virtual image. The AI was incredibly good at doing the trick; where she was appearing to multiple people at the same time she generally made sure everyone saw her in the same place and heard the same voice through bone transduction speakers in the glasses. She could provide independent channels for each person, but it got confusing if everyone was replying to different conversations.

Aneka, of course, did not need the glasses. She gave the AI a grin and got one back. She had no idea how Aggy was seeing and interpreting facial expressions, but she was.

Cassandra and Al did not need the glasses either, but then they were not, according to Al, requiring a visual interface anyway. They just communicated with their new team member digitally, and the difference had brought to mind what Evolution had said about Xinti minds requiring external stimuli where the AIs did not. She could have spoken to Aggy digitally, one computer to another, but she was still more comfortable working through an avatar.

‘We should get going,’ Aneka said. ‘We can shelve discussions of Ella’s cute qualities until we have more people around to embarrass her.’ Ella’s cheeks coloured a slightly deeper shade of red, but she stood up, then grabbed the corner of the table and swayed a little. ‘You okay?’ Aneka asked.

‘Yeah, just stood up too fast. My vision’s a little blurry at the fringes.’

‘Ask her when she last had her eyes checked,’ Al said.

‘When did you last have that service check done on your eyes, Ella?’ Aneka dutifully asked.

‘Uh… Oh! Gopi! It’s got to be six weeks at least. I mean, with everything that’s been happening…’

Aneka grinned, scooped Ella into her arms, and started for the door. ‘It shouldn’t be an issue. Delta’s qualified to do it, I think, and if she isn’t I’m sure one of the AIs can handle it.’

‘Uh-huh,’ Ella replied. ‘I can walk, you know?’

Aneka grinned. ‘Where’s the fun in that?’

~~~

Delta had another visitor in need of her cybernetics skills, though in Cassandra’s case it had been planned. The red-headed facilitator had set up shop in one of the Xinti labs; from all appearances a cybernetics lab which seemed to have every tool she could ask for. Delta certainly looked pleased with the arrangement.

Cassandra was lying face down on a sort of harness set between a pair of metal poles. The android was naked and a pair of panels on her back had been opened up to give Delta access to her internal components. Aneka was most surprised about the access panels; when closed there was absolutely no sign that they were there. There were various leads and connections plugged into ports behind it, within the android’s back, all of them kept tidy and out of the way by various manipulator arms which extended down from the ceiling. Most of the cables seemed to be fibre-optic data cables, used in the diagnostic process, but one was a fairly heavy power cable; Cassandra was in for her monthly recharge. The tops of four cells were visible in the cavity, peeking out from where they were mounted in pairs around her waist.

Delta looked up from a display as Aneka walked in, still carrying Ella. ‘Hi, what can I do for you two?’

‘Someone has been neglecting her eyes,’ Aneka replied.

Delta grinned. ‘Ah, right. Well, I don’t have another bench to strip her and put her on, so she’ll have to make do with a chair.’

‘I don’t need to be naked for this,’ Ella protested as Aneka put her down on a stool beside Delta.

‘It’d make it more fun though,’ Aneka told her. Ella considered this for a second and then reached for the hem of her T-shirt. Aneka grabbed her hands. ‘I was joking, love.’

Delta used the opportunity of Ella’s trapped hands to take Ella’s glasses off and replace them with a visor of some sort. ‘You know the drill, Ella. Just keep your eyes open and look straight ahead.’ She turned to a console beside her and tapped at it. ‘The system runs various tests using optical input and reading out the data flow using some wireless diagnostic feeds,’ she explained.

‘She’s getting some slight blurring,’ Aneka said, ‘and she was a bit unsteady on her feet earlier.’

‘Hence the carrying? Well, this won’t take too long. Cassandra’s sequence and charging takes much longer.’ Her eyes flicked over the first set of displays. ‘You know, these Frenoff Mark Sixes are a little out of date, Ella. The Mark Nines came out last year. Better visual acuity and a shorter maintenance sequence.’

‘I’ve had these since I was, uh, thirty-eight,’ Ella replied. ‘I had Mark Fives before that. I’ve never seen the need to change them.’

‘Well, I’m just saying. Hell, Aneka could probably learn how to do the routine servicing, with Al’s help. You’d save money and time.’

‘Wouldn’t that mean an operation?’ Aneka asked.

‘A pretty minor one. The prosthetics companies know that most people don’t want their products so their easiest market is people who already have them. They make upgrades easy. Slot in the new eyeballs, the connectors are compatible. It can be done in an hour.’

‘I’ll think about it when we get back home,’ Ella said. She was busy keeping her head still and the words came out in an uninflected monotone.

‘You have a synchronisation fault between the two image receptors,’ Delta said. ‘Hence the blurring.’

‘You can correct that?’ Aneka asked.

‘Fairly trivial,’ Delta replied. ‘It’s just a matter of applying a re-sync pulse… Applying a remote command… How’s that, Ella? Is the grid clear?’

‘It looks sharp… Yes, I think that’s perfect.’

‘Well, these old Frenoffs will probably do you another decade, but you should really consider some new ones. Clarion May make some compatible models with far better specs.’ Delta lifted the visor from Ella’s eyes revealing a thoughtful expression.

‘I’ve heard of them. They created some really amazing nanodrugs. I think they believe cybernetics is going to be the way for Jenlay to push forwards into the future.’

‘That’s them. Idealists. Probably wrong. They do make good products though.’

‘I’ll keep them in mind.’ Her gaze turned to Aneka. ‘I’ve come to have a new appreciation of cybernetics recently.’

Delta looked at Aneka too. ‘Yeah… I can understand that.’

Aneka decided that blushing was allowed under the circumstances.

~~~

Cassandra was avoiding Aneka’s eyes again and it took maybe ten minutes of it before she snapped, pulled the android aside and asked what was going on.

‘It’s stupid,’ Cassandra replied. ‘I’m sorry. I’ll control myself better.’

‘Uh-huh,’ Aneka drawled. ‘Why is it that psychologists are so bad at applying their skills to themselves?’

The platinum blonde was good at timid smiles despite the fact that her body was so precise most of the time. ‘Doctors make the worst patients?’ she suggested.

‘So?’

‘You saw me with my back opened up,’ Cassandra explained in a resigned tone. ‘It’s not exactly me at my best.’

‘I know you’re a robot, Cassandra. I’m basically a robot. I’m not going to think any differently about you than I did. More to the point, I doubt Al gives a flying fuck.’

‘I don’t,’ Al agreed.

‘Every sentient being has insecurities, Aneka,’ Cassandra replied. ‘You worry, needlessly, about your… humanity. Al worries about his purpose. Ella worries that she’ll lose you…’

‘Also needlessly.’

‘…and I worry that people think less of me because of the body I have. Some do.’

‘Not the ones who actually know you. Ella and Delta saw you too. Neither of them thinks any differently because of it.’

Cassandra’s smile was a little indulgent. ‘A cyborg and a cybernetics technician. Not exactly typical.’

‘Huh.’ Aneka turned. Monkey was unlucky enough to have not left the office they were using fast enough. ‘Monkey, come over here a minute, would you?’

He did, but you could tell he was wary about it; something embarrassing was just waiting for him, he could tell. ‘Aneka?’

‘Cassandra’s a robot, right?’

‘Well… Uh, yeah, I suppose so.’

‘And you’re not really too fond of robots?’

‘Well, no. As a rule.’

‘And I assume you’ve seen others of her model?’

‘A couple. Uh, in vids. I’ve never, uh, you know? With one.’ As expected, his cheeks were turning redder by the minute.

‘I wasn’t implying you have or would. But, does the fact that Cassandra is basically housed in the body of a sex robot make you think any less of her?’

‘Of course not!’ He actually seemed affronted by the suggestion. ‘She’s… I don’t know. It’s like you. Once you get to know either of you what you are isn’t the point. You’re not a Xinti robot and she’s not some dumb, non-volitional sex doll.’

Aneka turned to Cassandra. ‘I rest my case.’

‘Far more valid, I agree,’ Cassandra replied, ‘and thank you David. However, as you well know, insecurities, phobias, and bigotry are not rational. We’re stuck with them until we somehow work through them.’

There was no point in arguing; she was, of course, right. ‘Damn,’ Aneka said. ‘There I was hoping you’d invented a drug to get rid of them.’

Cassandra laughed; at least the current issue was resolved. ‘If we had it wouldn’t work on either of us anyway.’

~~~

The other amazing thing Aggy could do with the glasses everyone was wearing was to provide augmented reality training. Shannon was busy using that feature to bring her up to speed on the warp engine the AIs were fitting into the Garnet Hyde. She was working in the Forum, on one of the big stone islands, interacting with a model of the engine which Aggy projected for her through the glasses.

As Aneka approached, Aggy filled in the bulky piece of equipment for her too. She was looking at about fifteen tons of complex machinery, a tube about four metres long and two across with a number of heavy cables connected in via a ridge at the top. Right now Shannon had one of the side panels off and was peering in at the two donuts of metal and plastic which occupied the interior of the machine.

Aneka knew it was her own cultural heritage speaking, but she still found it a little odd that Shannon was the mechanically inclined of the two pilots. Drake knew his ship, and was good with various control systems, especially the comms suite, but if the reactor decided to break on them in deep space it was Shannon who was the one who would get them out of it. Engines were not a speciality, but someone needed to be at least familiar with the new hardware and Shannon had been given the job.

Out of a perverse sense of duty to her time period, Aneka wolf-whistled at the site of Shannon’s behind clad in high-cut running shorts sticking out towards her. Shannon peered around at the source of the sound, frowning a little.

‘Did that signify something? It seemed a little complex for just getting my attention.’

‘Seriously? The world is devoid of wolf whistles? I’m almost disappointed.’

‘I don’t recognise it.’

‘Originally from the navy. It was called General Call and was supposed to draw the attention of all crew members to something.’

‘Alert Code Three,’ Shannon said. It was one of three alert tones used aboard the Hyde, and other vessels, to draw increasingly urgent attention to some situation.

‘Uh-huh. Sailors used to whistle it to draw their friends’ attention to an attractive woman. It caught on outside the navy and then got simplified into that.’

Shannon grinned and, rather expertly, mimicked the two-tone whistle. Then she added, ‘You didn’t come down here to teach me a new method of complimenting you.’

‘Drake asked me to come check on you,’ Aneka replied. ‘Again. I think he’s a little worried about you getting bad headaches without your pills.’ Shannon opened her mouth, looking a little annoyed, but Aneka got in before the blonde could say anything. ‘You have been spending more time than usual alone.’

‘This is better for my concentration. No one’s shouting in my head.’

‘They’re still worried.’

‘Gopi no! They’re all so enthusiastic.’ The grimace was expressive to say the least. ‘The only ones who seem to be being realistic about all of this are you and Cassandra.’

Aneka’s eyebrows rose. ‘How can you tell? You can’t read our minds.’

‘I can read your body language. You’re… relieved. I’m not sure about Cassandra. She almost seems like a teenager with a new boyfriend. Can’t figure out who if she is.’ Shannon’s eyes widened as Aneka avoided her gaze. ‘You know!’

‘Not for me to say,’ Aneka replied.

Shannon was far too smart sometimes. ‘Al. She’s fallen for Al. That’s so… ’ Her face fell. ‘…frustrating.’

‘She does have a remarkably empathic mind,’ Al commented.

‘We have to figure something out,’ Shannon continued. ‘I mean, there has to be some way of getting them together.’

‘How? She’s an android and he has no body. Except mine and he can’t control it.’

‘Even if I wanted to,’ Al added.

‘Even if he wanted to,’ Aneka repeated.

‘What about some sort of virtual interaction?’ Shannon suggested.

‘I don’t think that’d be the same. I think if it was that easy they’d have done something about it.’

‘You’re quite perceptive yourself,’ Al told her. ‘We’re currently avoiding the issue.’

‘Better to just leave it,’ Aneka said to Shannon. ‘It’s their problem and I think we should let them deal with it.’

Shannon nodded, and then reached down and peeled off her T-shirt. Aneka looked at her. ‘What?’ Shannon said. ‘I need a break and you’re here. Get your suit off.’

Aneka laughed, but she unsealed her suit. ‘Yes, ma’am!’

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‘All systems check out, Captain,’ Aggy’s voice said through the speakers on the Garnet Hyde’s flight deck. ‘I am quite ready for the proving run.’

Drake nodded to Shannon and she hit a button on the console in front of her. ‘Garnet Hyde to Negral Control, requesting permission to leave dock.’

The voice which answered belonged to the AI handling the hangar bay and flights in and out of the system. Apparently she had been doing it since long before the war. ‘Negral Control here, opening bay doors and removing docking clamps. Begin at your leisure.’

‘Gillian?’ Drake asked.

‘Sensors are all fully operation. We’re ready.’ Gillian was sat at the science console, ready to check their flight data when they had some.

‘Abraham,’ Drake said, ‘everything ready down there?’

Wallace’s voice came back a second later from the engineering room. ‘All ready here. Looking forward to it, actually.’

‘Shannon, take us out.’

Aneka watched as the blonde pilot’s hands shifted over the controls. There was the gentle hiss of manoeuvring thrusters, inaudible to everyone else, and the ship turned smoothly towards the huge doors in the outer hull. There was no actual need for Aneka, or the rest of the facilitators, to be aboard, but no one was going to miss the inaugural flight of their upgraded ship.

‘Controls are smoother,’ Shannon commented, sounding pleased.

‘Thank you, Shannon,’ Aggy replied.

Drake chuckled. ‘I’ll take her back in. I want to get a feel for her if her handling’s changed.’

‘You won’t be disappointed,’ Shannon commented. ‘Fifteen seconds to main engine ignition.’

The fusion torch engines had not been upgraded by the AIs, but they had had some work due to minor damage. Just about everything had had some minor damage and the science team were taking careful measurements of everything they could measure, just in case.

‘Hull integrity and atmosphere are solid,’ Ella said from one of the labs where she was monitoring her own set of data feeds.

‘Engine start-up is proceeding as normal,’ Cassandra added. She was down in engineering with Wallace. ‘Reactor optimal.’

‘And the gas tank’s full,’ Shannon said, grinning. ‘Clear of the bay. Engine burn in five… Main engine burn.’

The subsonic whine Aneka had been hearing as the engines powered up developed ultrasonic overtones and the Hyde powered away from the station. The Hyde was only capable of about half a G’s acceleration, but the difference compared to the thrusters was quite noticeable even if the artificial gravity compensated almost perfectly for the sudden change.

‘That,’ Drake said, ‘was incredibly smooth. Aggy, you’re very good at this.’

‘Compared to the sub-light drives on my old ship, Captain, this is easy.’ Aggy nevertheless managed to sound proud. ‘I am measuring no abnormalities in the engines.’

‘Confirmed,’ Cassandra said. ‘Engine output is nominal. Acceleration is within normal parameters.’

Drake gave a nod. ‘Abraham, you ready for the warp test?’

‘Need you ask? I suggest giving the station several hundred kilometres’ clearance before engaging, however.’

‘Ready here too,’ Gillian added.

Shannon’s hands were moving again. She glanced at Drake, receiving a nod. ‘Garnet Hyde to Negral Control. Initiating warp drives in thirty-five seconds.’

‘Noted, Garnet Hyde,’ Control replied with no apparent hesitation. ‘Good luck and a good flight.’

‘Let’s give it a thirty-minute time limit,’ Drake said. ‘If anyone sees anything out of the ordinary we drop out immediately.’

Aneka was watching through the window as the drive engaged. Space seemed to pull in towards them for a fraction of a second, stars became streaks of white and then were shifted through blue and into the ultraviolet, and then vanished as the light was compressed into frequencies even she could not see. Then Aggy compensated for the movement and the dots reappeared.

‘Velocity is stable,’ Shannon said. ‘Point-oh-eight-three parsecs per hour.’

‘No radiation effects,’ Gillian stated. ‘The warp envelope looks stable and we’re getting no electromagnetic effects beyond the usual gamma-ray impacts.’

‘Everything here is in the green,’ Wallace said. ‘It looks very much like the operation was a success.’

‘It’s silent,’ Aneka said. ‘If it’s making a sound it must be above my frequency range.’

Drake settled back in his seat and relaxed. ‘Thirty minutes,’ he said, ‘then we’ll drop out, recheck everything, and head back.’ Aneka noticed him pat the arm of his flight chair; Drake was happy, his ship was going twice as fast as usual and performing perfectly.

~~~

‘Any problems?’ Aneka asked as she entered the lab.

Ella looked up from her console and smiled. ‘Nothing I can see and Aggy seems happy with the data.’

The golden woman appeared near them. ‘I have made some small adjustments to the warp field in conjunction with Doctor Wallace. The Garnet Hyde is a different shape to my old body. I cannot detect any issues with my structure either, and there is no detectable atmospheric loss or impurities.’

Ella grinned and, when Aggy’s image vanished again, took off her glasses. ‘All good.’ She nodded towards one of the larger screens showing the starscape outside. ‘And the view is awesome.’

‘Where are we?’ Aneka asked, her own eyes on the stars.

‘Fifty-ish light days out from Negral going up from the galactic plane.’

‘So it’d take light nearly fifty days to get here from Negral, and we did that in thirty minutes?’

‘Uh-huh.’

Aneka blinked. ‘Kind of brings it home. How fast we travel, I mean. It always seems to take months to get from star to star and I’ve never really had a concrete idea of the distances…’

‘It’s normally about a day to travel a parsec. We can do double that now. A parsec is about three-and-a-quarter light years, so we can travel six-and-a-half light years in twenty hours.’

‘That’s Earth, Old Earth, to its nearest neighbouring star in under a day. I remember Alan telling me that was about four light years away once.’

Ella grinned again and her fingers flicked over her console. The room lights dimmed to black leaving only the light from the screen of stars to illuminate them. Aneka stepped closer and slipped an arm around Ella’s shoulders.

‘Still think it’s beautiful?’ the redhead asked softly.

‘I’m not sure I’m ever going to stop.’

‘Good,’ Ella whispered.

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There had been something of a melancholy atmosphere about the station since the proving flight had gone off without a fault. Everyone knew what it meant and everyone, even the AIs, found themselves looking for excuses to delay the inevitable.

For Aneka, who had been ready to give the order straight off the bat, the realisation that she did not entirely want to leave was something of a shock. In some ways, these were the last entities to know her before she was trapped in space for a thousand years. They had never met her in Human form, her body had been dismantled aboard the Agroa Gar, but they had known her before the memory loss, had studied her mind as it was all those years ago. And they liked her. Evolution in particular seemed to think of Aneka as the greatest accomplishment of the Human Evolution project, but all of them viewed her as the last living Xinti individual, even if she was not quite the same as the entities that had once created them.

The fact was that this place was as much a home as New Earth, maybe more so. This was where Aneka had become the Aneka she now was. She was still not sure whether that was the same as the one stolen from Earth, but it was who she was now. Negral was her home world, the place where she had been reborn. Leaving it was not going to be as easy as she had thought.

‘It isn’t like we’re your family,’ Evolution said from the doorway to her project lab.

Aneka looked around from the galaxy map she had been staring at. ‘I think you probably qualify as a distant aunt.’

‘How so? I’m software. I don’t even usually have a body.’

‘Well, you were “related” to the AI who built this body. If that makes her my surrogate mother then you’re a surrogate aunt.’

Evolution laughed, walking over to stand beside Aneka, her gaze falling on the star map. ‘Considering that we kidnapped you, twice, and uplifted you against your will, I’d consider that a compliment.’

‘You did as you were told,’ Aneka replied.

‘Hmm. I believe that “we were just following orders” is a poor excuse. Of course, I also believe in what we did.’

Aneka looked at her, head tilted slightly in thought. ‘You’ve no choice though, have you? You were created with a purpose, like Al. He’s more bound by his, perhaps, but you can no more go against it than he can.’

‘I can question the validity of my purpose where he does not, perhaps, have the capacity to do so. Of course, his purpose was your safety and the observation of your behaviour. Neither causes harm while my purpose has caused so much.’

‘You said yourself that there are species around that would not be so advanced without you.’

‘And others gone forever because of me. The Xinti among them.’ The synthetic body frowned. ‘Are we doing the right thing, Aneka? Should we put ourselves in a position where we are artificially advancing civilisations again?’

Aneka reached out and took Evolution’s hand. It was warm, the skin felt like skin. It was hard to think of this being as a computer. ‘You’ve had a millennium to work through your mistakes and every opportunity to control how you teach what you know. I trust Abraham and Gillian. If they think this can work, that the knowledge you have will be of overall benefit, then I have to believe that it’s going to be okay.’ She smiled. ‘Besides, we do have a couple of very big safeguards.’

‘Indeed. I was a little surprised that your crewmates agreed to have their memories altered.’

‘They all know they’re safer that way,’ Aneka replied. ‘If none of them knows where this place is they can’t be used to find out. That leaves Aggy, who won’t go against an order from me, and me. If someone can force it out of me then they probably deserve to get the information. How’s the relay network going?’

‘We have wormholed six out of ten units into position. The others will be placed over the next sixteen hours. Doctor Wallace has been observing the operation.’ She grinned. ‘With considerable interest.’

Aneka grinned back. ‘Yeah, he would be.’

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Aneka watched as the stars appeared ahead of the Garnet Hyde. The ship was moving smoothly out through the outer doors of the hangar bay under Aggy’s guidance. Aneka was the only person active on the ship right now, and she was up there for only one reason. She waited, silently, while the fusion drive took over from the thrusters and the Hyde accelerated away from the station. Then she reached out and tapped a button on the console.

‘Garnet Hyde to Negral Control. Ready for warp.’

It was Evolution’s voice that answered her. ‘All our sensors are showing green lights, Aneka. Good luck, and good journey.’

‘Talk to you in a couple of months, Eve.’

‘We’re all looking forward to it. Negral Control out.’

Aneka sighed. ‘All right, Aggy, let’s go to warp.’

Ahead of them the stars blurred and vanished into blue, and they were on their way home.

Part Four: The Art Of Diplomacy

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The last of the usual diagnostic messages scrolled past Aneka’s eyes. She opened them, registering again that Ella was not lying beside her. She had not even considered that she would miss that, but she had. Basically heterosexual before the Xinti had conditioned her to a more ‘open’ view of just about every new experience, the idea that missing a woman in bed with her would be a problem was just… odd. Still, she was missing Ella and she was glad that it would not be the case for much longer.

Sitting up and swinging her legs out of bed, she immediately saw Cassandra. The android had been her companion for the last twenty-one days. Aneka’s first duty once the Hyde was clear of the Negral system had been to reactivate Cassandra. Turning herself off had been her own idea; she had wanted no possibility that she would see anything that could lead back to Negral. She had, in fact, been quite happy to be inactive for the entire trip, but Drake had nixed that; if Aneka was awake someone else had to be, and Aggy did not count yet.

‘Good morning, Aneka,’ Cassandra said, smiling. ‘Would you like some breakfast?’

‘We’ll get the others up,’ Aneka replied. ‘They’ll want food and drink, and I can grab something then. It’s not like I really need it.’

‘Shall we go down then?’

‘Let me get my suit on.’ Aneka reached for the garment as she said so.

‘Are you sure you should bother? You’ll just have to take it off as soon as Ella has recovered.’

Aneka gave the android a look. Cassandra was all serious, except for the twinkle in her eyes. Slipping the Ultraskin garment up her legs she said, ‘It comes off very easily. Aggy, would you restart the air cycle in the other rooms, please?’

‘Of course, Aneka.’ The computer’s image appeared near the cabin door. ‘Shall I initiate the recovery systems? It requires ten minutes and thirty-eight seconds, on average, to complete.’

It would not take them that long to walk to the cold-sleep room. ‘Yes. Pipe the telemetry through to Al.’ Almost instantly two rows of indicators appeared in-vision showing the frighteningly low heart and respiratory rates of each crew member, and their nearly non-existent EEGs.

Ten minutes later, as Aneka and Cassandra waited with bottles of isotonic fluids, the readouts looked far more normal. ‘Everything appears to be normal,’ Cassandra commented as she walked down between the two rows of white coffins with their transparent lids.

‘Uh-huh,’ Aneka replied. There was a spike in brain activity on one of her displays and she turned towards the pod Delta was in. She had sort of figured that the girl would be the first up and, sure enough, the lid hinged open a second later and Delta let out a groan.

‘Are we there yet?’ Delta croaked, sitting up and wincing. ‘I hate cold sleep.’

Aneka handed her a bottle. ‘About a day out from Sapphira.’

‘Right.’ Cracking the seal, the muscled redhead drained the bottle in one, very thirsty pull. ‘Tell me again why we’re stopping off at Sapphira.’

‘It’s the first Federation world we come to. We stop here, contact New Earth, and get instructions.’

Monkey’s pod cracked open then, forestalling any further discussion, and after that they were busy as people started to rapidly awaken. The last was Wallace, the oldest and the least adapted to stress, though it was Gillian who expressed their joint displeasure.

‘I’m getting too old for this,’ Gillian groaned, holding out a hand for a second bottle of water.

Aneka giggled. ‘Do you say that every time you wake up from cold sleep?’

‘For as long as I’ve known her,’ Bashford said, chuckling.

‘Just imagine how I feel,’ Wallace countered. ‘Could someone get me my…’ He stopped as Cassandra handed him the anti-gravity unit the AIs had given him. ‘What would I do without you?’ he asked, grinning.

‘You would certainly never be able to find anything,’ Cassandra replied, ‘but I think you would adjust.’

‘All right,’ Drake interjected, ‘I want food, a lot of coffee, and a status report. I trust you two haven’t broken my ship?’

Aggy’s voice came from the room’s speakers. ‘All my systems are operating perfectly, Captain. We are currently twenty-three standard hours from entry into the Sapphira system. The flight has been smooth and uneventful.’

‘Sounds good. Now I just need to eat.’

‘So do I,’ Ella agreed, stretching as she climbed free of her sleep pod, ‘but I’d better get some food in me first.’

~~~

Aneka’s hips tilted, her back arched, and she felt the familiar tension of orgasm beginning again. ‘Fuck… gonna…’

Ella lifted her head for just long enough to say, ‘Come for me, love,’ and then she returned to tonguing Aneka’s clitoris with a flicking action she knew worked exceptionally well.

‘Mmnngggnnn-ah!’ Aneka replied as the pressure exploded up through her body and swept through her mind, and nothing mattered aside from Ella’s tongue and fingers, and her whole world was bright light… And then she was lying on the table in their cabin, panting hard even though her body did not really need the oxygen.

Giggling, Ella slipped her fingers out of Aneka and made a show of licking them clean. ‘It feels like you’ve missed me,’ she said, sounding pleased. ‘I must’ve missed you. I had a dream that we were making love on a beach the whole time I was asleep. You must’ve had some fun with Cassandra?’

‘Nope,’ Aneka replied, struggling to regain control of her breathing. She had a theory that she only did this because it clearly made Ella think she was doing a good job. On the other hand she did not appear to be able to stop doing it either. ‘Not even a stealthy grope.’

‘Vashma, you must be strong. I’d have been between her thighs before the first night was out.’

‘You don’t have Al in your head. It’d feel a bit like I was getting Cassandra to cheat on him.’

‘So you’ve been over twenty days without an orgasm? You poor baby!’

Aneka barked a laugh. ‘Ella, you may be used to sex at every opportunity, but I’ve done without for months at a time.’

‘I’m sure I’ve read somewhere that that causes mental instability and social dysfunction.’

‘Huh. I was in the army and then a mercenary. I was already socially dysfunctional.’

‘Tamahda! You’re as balanced as every Jenlay I’ve ever met, aside from the fact most of them won’t kill people.’ Her hands stroked over Aneka’s bare thigh. ‘And I’m not saying that’s a bad thing. Hunter deserved it.’

‘I’m not sure anyone deserves to die…’ Ella’s hands slid further up Aneka’s thighs, sliding inward, and Aneka groaned. ‘H-haven’t you had enough?’

‘You’ve got twenty days of abstinence to make up for,’ Ella replied, smiling sweetly as she leaned forward.

21.10.524 FSC.

‘All hands,’ Shannon’s voice came from the lab’s speakers, ‘warp exit in sixty seconds. This is a trinary system so there may be a little chop.’

Aneka, who was hanging around there because she had nothing much else to do, glanced around at Gillian. ‘Chop?’

‘Sapphira is a three-star system,’ Gillian replied. ‘The complex gravity can cause some odd reactions with the warp field. The closest companion star is always at least thirty AU out so it’s unlikely, but we are flying with an engine we’ve never seen before.’

‘The warp field generated by a second-generation drive is actually more stable than that of a first-generation drive.’ Aggy’s image was standing beside them. She had been assisting Gillian and Ella in an analysis of Xinti musical composition. Aneka definitely preferred her rock music.

‘Soon know,’ Aneka replied. ‘The engine note just changed. I can hear it now.’

‘Gravitational stress is resulting in a three per cent increase in power demand,’ Aggy told them. ‘Since my reactor is already fully loaded I have had to reduce speed. Time to exit now twenty-three-point-four seconds.’

The tone lowered until Aneka could hear a strong, ultrasonic whine. ‘Sounds like it’s labouring a bit.’ Then the sound cut off, replaced a second later by the roar of the fusion drive. ‘We’re out of warp.’

‘We are,’ Aggy confirmed. ‘Captain Drake is contacting Sapphira flight control now.’

‘This should be interesting,’ Ella commented.

They waited in silence for what seemed like hours, but Aneka’s clock showed just over a minute before Drake’s voice came over the lab’s speakers. ‘The naval base is sending a frigate out to meet us. They’re putting us into quarantine.’

‘To be expected,’ Gillian said, sighing.

‘I have dispatched the message you requested, Aneka,’ Aggy stated. ‘Estimated time to reception at New Earth is eight days, two hours.’

Aneka nodded. ‘It’ll reach Winter before anything the locals send.’

‘Let’s just hope they don’t shoot first and worry about contacting New Earth later,’ Gillian said.

‘They wouldn’t!’ Ella protested.

‘This is the Navy we’re talking about,’ Aneka replied. ‘They don’t like the Xinti.’ She shrugged. ‘Then again, I’m not entirely sure the modern Navy knows where the fire button is on their guns.’

~~~

They might not have known where that button was, but they knew where the triggers were on their carbines. There were five of them, four marines in combat suits and full helmets, and one wearing the insignia of a lieutenant. He was the one doing the talking; the others formed up at his flanks as soon as they were through the airlock.

‘Lieutenant Ireland of the Delta Delilah,’ the squad leader said.

‘Captain Drake,’ Drake responded. He was standing ahead of Aneka and just to her right. If the shooting started, he was going to be behind her, though they were hoping to avoid that eventuality. ‘This is one of my facilitators, Miss Jansen.’

‘The rest of your crew?’

‘In the mess,’ Drake replied.

‘A federal alert went out to keep our eyes open for your ship, Captain,’ Ireland said. ‘The reports indicated that their might have been Xinti involvement in your disappearance.’

‘There wasn’t,’ Drake replied. ‘However, we need to talk to Administration Representatives as soon as possible.’

Ireland’s face was impassive. ‘Our orders are to hold you in quarantine until we can determine the nature of the Xinti influence you’ve been under. There are medical teams on their way up from Sapphira.’

Drake glanced at Aneka and she shrugged. ‘How high is your security clearance, Lieutenant?’ Drake asked.

‘I’m the XO aboard the Delta Delilah,’ Ireland replied, straightening his back. ‘Level five on a need-to-know basis.’

‘In that case you’d better get me your Captain, because if you bring a medical team aboard this ship I’ll have to have you arrested for treason.’

~~~

Captain Joshua Perry was not a happy man. You could tell from the way he glowered through the faceplate of his helmet as he walked into the mess aboard the Garnet Hyde. Aneka noted that the insignia he wore ranked him as a commander, not uncommon for the officer in charge of a frigate, but Perry did not look young and he was stationed on a Rim World base well out of the Federation’s core. She guessed he had not had a particularly distinguished career. His body lacked the definition she was used to in naval officers; he was not keeping himself as fit as he could, but his situation suggested more that he was too keen to run his mouth off. His opening statement backed up that supposition.

‘There better be a damn good reason why I’m having to come here in person or…’

‘What’s your security clearance, Captain?’ Drake asked, cutting the man off. His tone suggested he was not happy with Perry’s.

‘Seven, if required. What’s that got to do with you lot undergoing medical scans?’

Drake looked at Aneka. Aneka sighed. ‘I’ve got this little speech I was told to give.’ Out of the corner of her eyes she saw Delta swallow hard; she had got the same speech. ‘The information you are about to be given is classified under Federal Law as a level-seven secret. You are to reveal this information to no one. Revealing this information is subject to penalties not excluding death. Captain Perry, do you understand what I have just told you?’

The man’s face went from angry to serious. ‘I do.’

‘Right. You’re aware of who I am?’

‘Yeah, of course. Most of the galaxy knows who you are. Aneka Jansen, resident of Old Earth, kidnapped by the Xinti and frozen for a thousand years.’

‘They didn’t just freeze me. They took an image of my mind and transplanted it into a cybernetic body. This body. They did to me what they did to themselves. Physically, you could say I’m a Xinti.’

Perry stiffened, his hand moving towards the pistol at his hip. ‘Why’s that a secret?’

‘Firstly,’ Gillian replied, ‘because people would react the way you did. Fear, distrust. Aneka has undergone extensive psychological evaluation. She is, despite her physical nature, a Jenlay.’

‘Human,’ Aneka corrected. ‘We were Human back then. And the other reason why it’s a secret, Captain, is that Winter says it is. If you’d like to ask her about it, feel free, but I don’t think the conversation would go well. She’s never struck me as someone who likes having her decisions second-guessed. Anyway, you can’t have me scanned. The medics would pick up that I wasn’t Jenlay immediately.’

Perry sagged. ‘Gopi,’ he grumbled. ‘This is above my pay grade, and I doubt Captain Goddard is going to think any different. We’ll need to contact New Earth and that’s a sixteen-day round trip for a message…’

‘It gets worse,’ Drake told him. ‘We weren’t taken by the Xinti, but we were transported across half the galactic arm by some AIs they left behind. We started out as an archaeological mission, now we’re diplomats. They want to open communications with the Federation.’

‘Technically that’s not a secret,’ Aneka said, ‘but I think if word of it gets out there’ll be blood on the decking.’

Perry was back to looking angry. ‘Why the fuck did you people have to turn up on my watch?’

‘I guess you’re just lucky,’ Aneka replied.

~~~

‘So what’s the story with Sapphira?’ Aneka asked. She was sitting in the cabin she shared with Ella while the redhead took a shower. There was no room in the small cubicle that contained the washroom for two to get wet at the same time.

‘It’s a little like Odanari, a resort world. It’s famous for one of its mountain ranges which is practically entirely formed of blue quartz. The main difference is that Sapphira has a native population, mostly farmers. The mountains are on one continent, which is where all the tourists go. The natives live on the other one. Pretty insular, I believe, but that’s not uncommon on the Rim.’

‘Sounds kind of nice. Quiet.’

‘Not the resort. From what I’ve heard Sapphira Tourism likes to keep the authorities away from the place. Once you’ve landed and you’re away from the spaceport and the government facilities, pretty much anything goes. It’s not cheap to get all the way out here so the clientele are mostly rich kids or Rim Worlders. The locals like the money the resort brings in, but not the resort. Most of the staff are shipped in on contract.’

‘Think we’ll get to visit?’

The water stopped and Ella emerged from the washroom, drying herself with a towel. ‘Vashma, I hope so. I could do with a planet under my feet before we go back into cold sleep.’

‘Well, I doubt we’re getting off this ship until Winter steps in. We’re going to be in orbit for sixteen days at least.’

Ella gave her a predatory grin. ‘Sixteen days with nothing to do but fuck? I can live with that.’

23.10.524 FSC.

They did not, of course, have nothing to do aside from sex. Wallace was very busy going over the flight data trying to perfect his understanding of the new warp engine. Gillian was reviewing historical data from Aggy’s databases, and wearing an almost child-like smile most of the time. Cassandra was continuing her psychological profile of Aggy since that was going to be needed fairly soon. And Ella was floating between Gillian and Cassandra, lending whatever support was required.

The flight crew had their duties as well, though Drake and Shannon did not have that much to do and were actually spending a fair amount of time in Drake’s cabin. Shannon was looking rather pleased with herself, which was generally a sign that they were at it like bunnies. That said, Shannon was still working her way over the warp drive mechanics and Drake could often be found in engineering with her since he liked to be at least familiar with everything on his ship.

That left the facilitators. Aneka and Bashford’s partners were working, and Monkey and Delta were really not the kind of people to spend all day in bed, so Bashford had decided that a training plan was in order. It kept the mind going and would result in him having more effective subordinates. So the four of them were spending most of the days down in the pressurised section of the hold where they had space to work.

There were various things tucked away in some of the equipment cases which people hardly ever got to see or use. They were aboard the Hyde because, under some specific circumstance or other, they were incredibly useful. On the other hand, those circumstances just did not come to pass that often. So Bashford was taking the opportunity to drag out some of the gadgets most facilitators knew existed but had never actually seen, and then show them to his compatriots.

There was the thing that looked like a thin lunchbox which, through some form of magic origami, was able to unfold itself into a lightweight shelter. It had a simple, manual airlock system, air filters, windows, even fold-down tables and padded sleeping areas for two. Made from bio-plastic, it was self-repairing and quite capable of keeping up to four people alive in rough conditions, however, it would blow away in a strong breeze and Bashford recommended securing it to something if you were going to leave it unoccupied.

Pulling out the portable workshop unit and setting it up was an interesting exercise. They actually had two of them, one for electronics repair work and another designed for vehicle mechanics, but Bashford was happy enough to just drag the bulky mechanical cases out of storage and have them set up in the hold. It took an hour, and felt to Aneka like they were building flat-pack furniture; the kind of pack with instructions written in Swahili by a Polynesian where you were sure there was a bit missing. Despite this, when it was completed they were looking at something that looked like it could repair a car, including lifting the engine out, or jacking the thing up to inspect the underside.

Climbing gear was dragged out and demonstrated, including the setae strip-based pitons which could fix a line to any surface and the electromagnetic launcher which could fire those pitons up to four hundred metres without difficulty. Aneka was most of the way up the wall suspended from a ridiculously thin but very strong cable attached to one of these pitons when Drake came in followed by another squad of marines accompanying another officer. This one had the Captain’s insignia and a short but fairly bulky frame.

Drake looked upwards, raising an eyebrow. ‘Aneka, this is Captain Goddard. He wants to talk to you. Alone.’

‘Huh.’ A button on the ascender she was using dropped Aneka two metres onto the deck and she started to unclip. ‘We can go to my cabin. Ella will be in the lab.’

‘I’d prefer more space,’ Goddard said. ‘My men…’

‘If you want to talk to me instead of the Captain of this ship,’ Aneka interrupted, ‘then your men don’t have the clearance to hear what we’re saying. You’re talking to me alone or not at all.’ She started for the door.

Goddard hesitated for a second and then followed, accompanied by his squad. They made their way up one deck and down the corridor to where Aneka’s cabin was, and then she stared at him until he ordered his guards to stand outside. She noticed him undo the strap on his holster before he followed her into the room, but gave no indication that she had seen the action. The idiot had no clue what he was dealing with.

Dropping into a chair Aneka looked up at the naval officer. ‘You wanted to talk, Captain.’

‘After providing a lot of evidence of my need to know what was going on to a federally attributed security AI, I was able to get access to enough information to find out why Perry hadn’t let the medical team aboard. He wouldn’t tell me. Said I had to ask you or find out some other way.’

‘Wise man.’

‘Scared, more like. He’s screwed up enough times to know when to keep his mouth shut about some things.’ Aneka nodded; she had been right about the reason Perry was out here. That made you wonder what Goddard had done to pull the placement. ‘That still leaves us with an issue. You people claim to have made first contact with an alien species under uncontrolled circumstances. Federal security policy is for there to be a complete medical and psychological evaluation before you’re allowed out of quarantine.’

‘Uh-huh. We’ve just spent a month on a space station, unable to return because the ship was damaged. We expected to be quarantined on arrival. In about fifteen days we’ll get orders from New Earth. Before that we’re stuck. We’ve got work to do, we’re not worried.’

‘You’re making my life difficult, Miss Jansen. If you’d just…’

‘Just what? Allow some medi-tech to scan me, find out what I am and break a level-seven secret? I’m bound by this as much as anyone, Captain. Don’t you think there are some people back on New Earth I’d like to tell? Friends who I think deserve to know? I can’t without clearance, and that clearance has to come from someone damn high up in Federal Security.’

A flicker of annoyance passed over his face, but she was not sure whether it was because she was continuing to make his life difficult or that he had been hoping she would break the rules. ‘It may take longer to get a reply from the Administration. You could be stuck here for weeks…’

‘Captain. We’ll get a reply as fast as the FTL communications system allows. Fifteen more days. Please stop trying to persuade me to break the law. My memory is perfect, admissible in courts martial. We’ll be out of communication here so if there were to be a breach in security it would have to come from you or Perry and I would have to give evidence as to the nature of our interactions while I was here. I’m sure you don’t want to find yourself suspected of treason.’

Goddard’s eyes narrowed and he appeared about to respond. Instead he turned on his heels and left, his back stiff and his fists clenched.

~~~

‘Not exactly diplomatic,’ Gillian commented as they sat around the mess for the evening meal.

Aneka shrugged. ‘All diplomacy is a continuation of war by another means.’

‘Very profound.’

‘Zhou Enlai, first Premier of the People’s Republic of China. It’s a play on another quote, “All war is a continuation of politics by another means.” I’m afraid I don’t know who said that. Zhou’s version made sense of some of the diplomats I’ve met.’

‘Do you think Goddard is going to be trouble?’ Drake asked.

‘He doesn’t seem like much of a political animal. If he was why would he be out here? That might mean he’s stupid enough to try to break security. I doubt he’ll do it himself though. If he can’t think of a way to get us to say something he’ll avoid any situation where he’s going to be on the wrong end of an angry Winter.’

‘Huh,’ Bashford grunted. ‘No one with a gram of sense wants to be on her wrong side.’

‘You’re right though,’ Drake said. ‘You don’t get posted out here if you’re on the fast track to Vice Admiral.’ Aneka kept the frown off her face at the undertone of bitterness in Drake’s voice. ‘He probably said the wrong thing at a party during officer training. We need to make sure that we don’t do anything he can use against us.’

‘What are we going to do?’ Ella asked. ‘No communications, no outside contact. There’s nothing we can do.’

Drake grunted, his face indicating annoyance. ‘If he’s determined enough, breathing may be a bad start.’

25.10.524 FSC.

Drake had instituted a watch system to ensure that someone was always on the flight deck in case anything attempted to breach quarantine. He and Shannon were handling it most of the time, but the four facilitators were taking their turns to give the flight crew sufficient break time, and Aneka had insisted that she handle the graveyard shift since she needed less sleep.

Aggy appearing ‘in person,’ sitting in the co-pilot’s seat was unusual enough that Aneka gave her a little frown. It was almost time to wake the others anyway and it seemed odd that the computer should choose now to appear.

‘Aneka, there is something which has been bothering me and I wish to… I believe the term is “get it off my chest.”’

‘Okay. What’s up?’

‘You are not entirely happy about your uplift. Am I correct?’

Aneka sighed. ‘I had a life, a family. That was taken away from me. I wasn’t happy about that, no.’

‘Then I must apologise. While the final decision on whether to uplift you was made by Chief Scientist Aktana, it was my recommendation which placed you at the head of the list. I feel that I am responsible for your loss.’

Aneka fell silent as emotions rushed through her mind. Anger, a sense of betrayal. She had felt sorry for the AI, there had been something of a common loss; Aneka had lost her world and Aggy had lost the species that had created her. She liked Aggy. Now this…

‘List?’ Aneka finally said, focussing on the details to force herself through the conflict in her head.

‘I monitored communications, especially those on your Internet, but also others. My mission was to compile a list of potential candidates for uplift. Chief Scientist Aktana compiled an initial set of criteria and I returned a list of four thousand candidates. The criteria were refined until I could narrow the list down to fourteen best fits.’

‘I see. And why was I selected from those?’

‘Chief Scientist Aktana believed that a female was preferable as a subject. There was only circumstantial evidence, but that was his preference. There were four women on the list; the others all had various scientific backgrounds. Chief Scientist Aktana preferred one of the others, but I suggested that you were more likely to adjust than the others based on your wider experience, and your brother provided an avenue into science if one was needed. In the end your mission provided a greater opportunity to extract you without detection.’

‘I was the expedient option.’ Aneka sat back in her chair and sighed. Even if Evolution felt that ‘just following orders’ was not a viable excuse for the activities she had undertaken, Aggy was a ship’s computer. Hell, she could not even disobey an order Aneka gave her. Anything Aktana told her to do would have been gospel. ‘You were doing as you were told, Aggy.’

‘I still feel that I have caused you harm and I should apologise for selecting you.’

‘And that’s why I’m going to do my best not to be angry about it. I kind of doubt Aktana would have apologised to me.’

‘No,’ Aggy conceded. ‘Your uplift was considered a great honour. Many believed that performing the operation on what was considered a lesser species was abhorrent. That situation was only resolved when Battle Leader Lysian adopted you into the Warrior caste with considerable praise of your ideals and virtues.’

‘Huh. I don’t exactly feel honoured.’

‘No. I have compiled all of the information I collected on you into a file. You may find it useful to read…’ The AI stopped in mid-sentence and Aneka looked at her, frowning. ‘Passive sensors have detected a small vessel approaching,’ Aggy said after a second. ‘Its course indicates an intention to dock. The identification pulses are for a Federal Administration shuttle.’

‘Ah crap! What now? Aggy, wake Drake and brief him. Keep the airlock sealed until we find out what they want.’

‘Yes, Aneka.’

Aggy’s image vanished and Aneka turned her attention to the console which was showing the projected course of a target identifier. Sure enough, it was synchronising its orbit to the Garnet Hyde. The communications system chimed for attention and, almost immediately, a voice came over the radio.

‘Garnet Hyde, this is Captain Goddard. You have visitors from Sapphira Administration coming aboard. Please meet us at your starboard airlock.’

Aneka frowned; Goddard sounded far too pleased with himself. This was going to be trouble.

~~~

There were six armed guards this time to go with three visitors. Goddard was there trying to keep the smile off his face. He thought this was going to be the point where someone slipped up and the entire story was going to come out, probably explosively. Then there were the two civilians.

One was a woman, not particularly tall, slim with an expansive chest and the usual, pretty face. Wisps of dark-blonde hair showed through her helmet faceplate. She had the body confidence of a core world citizen, looking perfectly happy in her semi-transparent shipsuit, and she had the kind of piercing, highly observant gaze Aneka had seen in the better politicians, as well as intelligence operatives and assassins.

The other was a man, tall, powerfully built, but with a body form which suggested the muscle came from hard work, and it was starting to soften a little. He was handsome, rugged, with strong features and bright, blue eyes, but he looked uncomfortable standing in the airlock corridor in front of Drake and Aneka. Aneka figured he was a local, a farmer who had ended up in politics and was not getting the exercise he used to. He also did not have the same basic, almost arrogant, self-confidence that Jenlay from the core had.

Goddard looked like he was going to speak first, but the woman stepped forward as the two crew members approached and Goddard’s speech stalled in his throat.

‘Captain Drake and Miss Jansen, I assume,’ the woman said. ‘I’m Andrea Vaughn, I’m a Representative on Sapphira. This is Administrator Anthony Shaw.’

Drake nodded. ‘Welcome to the Garnet Hyde. We’re in a quarantine situation here. Please remain in your suits at all times.’

Shaw glared at Goddard. ‘You said I wouldn’t have to be in this damn thing longer than necessary.’

Aneka kept the smirk off her face; one of Goddard’s plots had been defused early. ‘I’m afraid it’s going to be necessary for a while. If you take your helmet off you’ll be stuck here as long as we are.’

‘You’ve caught us during breakfast,’ Drake added. ‘Everyone’s in the mess if you’re here to meet the crew.’

‘Dawn was four hours ago,’ Shaw commented, frowning.

‘Anthony isn’t really used to space travel,’ Vaughn supplied.

‘You have about a seventeen-hour day, I believe,’ Drake said. ‘Up here we get a sunrise every thirty minutes. We operate on a standard twenty-hour day. Otherwise we’d go nuts.’

‘Right, of course.’

‘If we won’t be disturbing anyone,’ Vaughn said, ‘we’d like to meet your crew. Captain Goddard, I don’t believe you’ll be required. This is a civil matter and we’ll have your fine marines to handle any security issues.’

‘Representative, I don’t…’ Goddard stopped as she turned and looked at him. As far as Aneka knew, Representatives held the highest political office on a given world. There were Senators above them, but they generally spent much of their time off-world at the Senate on Obati VI. Aneka bet Vaughn was a very smooth political operator. Goddard turned to the squad leader, a woman wearing Ensign’s insignia. ‘Randall, make sure nothing happens to our guests.’

Randall snapped off a salute. ‘Sir, yes, sir.’ Aneka cringed, hiding it and turning to head down the corridor towards the habitation areas.

Introductions were made quickly. Shaw nodded politely to each person in turn and had probably forgotten half the names before they got through everyone. Aneka was watching Vaughn. She was pretty sure that the politician had memorised all the names, and had probably made early calculations on relationships, both social and administrative.

‘We’re here,’ Vaughn said once the niceties were out of the way, ‘to assess any threat you represent to Sapphira. Anthony is a well-respected member of the community on Arbonatura, administering the northern region. I’m the Representative for Sapphira Vista. We have had, quite frankly, nothing but obfuscation from Captain Goddard and that is distinctly worrying. He claims that he cannot perform a full assessment of the situation due to security issues which no one else on Sapphira has the clearance for.’

Drake nodded. They had covered this one in planning too. ‘I’d assume that you know that the Garnet Hyde vanished from the Joval system a little over two months ago?’

Vaughn nodded. ‘Obviously the event was quite newsworthy.’

‘We have spent most of the time since then as they guests of some Xinti-made artificial intelligences.’

While the two politicians stared at him, Gillian continued the story. ‘After assessing the consequences as best we could it was decided, jointly, that we would return to the Federation to begin the diplomatic process needed to integrate the AIs into our society.’

‘Their technology is… beyond anything we have ever seen,’ Wallace added. ‘They have over a thousand years of development on top of what the Xinti discovered. They used some of that technology to repair this ship, some to repair us. These suits most of us are wearing were given to us as replacements. I’m wearing a personal scale anti-gravity harness. We simply cannot allow this technology into general circulation without full assessment by the Administration.’

Shaw rallied himself, looking at Aneka. ‘How do you get away without wearing one of these gimp suits?’ A displacement activity question; his brain was taking time to take in what he had been told.

‘Aneka’s an Old Earth Human,’ Ella said, ‘not a Jenlay. If she spends too much time in a bio-plastic suit her skin reacts badly. The suit she’s wearing is air-permeable.’

‘Special dispensation on medical grounds,’ Drake added. Aneka was busy marvelling that Ella could lie so proficiently under the right circumstances. ‘On the minus side, if we get a decompression incident she’ll be in trouble.’

‘You’re saying that this vessel contains potentially dangerous, Xinti-derived technology?’ Vaughn asked.

‘Dangerous in the socially disruptive sense,’ Gillian replied. ‘This is a science vessel. There are no weapons aboard aside from side arms.’

‘I’d like a team to check over the ship. Ensure that…’

‘No,’ Drake stated flatly.

‘I’m sorry?’

‘No. Until we hear from the Administration, this ship is off limits to technicians, scientists, medics, and anyone else.’

Vaughn’s face creased into a frown for a fraction of a second; barely enough to be noticed unless you had an accelerated brain. It was quickly replaced by a smile that was trying not to be indulgent. ‘You don’t have the authority…’

‘I’m the Captain of the FScV Garnet Hyde. That gives me all the authority I need, but I can back that up with enforcement of federal secrets if I have to.’

‘According to the Federal Register of Corporations,’ Al said in the silence of Aneka’s head, ‘Hayward Pharmaceuticals has a research facility on Sapphira. That deals in agricultural research, but the company deals in all aspects of disease prevention.’

‘Want to bet Vaughn has shares?’ Aneka replied. ‘Hang on, how do you know what’s in the Federal Register of Corporations?’

‘I downloaded it in an off-moment, in case it was useful. I have a lot of off-moments and a great deal of storage space.’

‘Right…’ Aloud she said, ‘Hayward Pharmaceuticals will just have to wait like everyone else, Representative.’

There was the slight parting of the lips, the widening of the eyes, the slight increase in the temperature of the skin of her cheeks as blood flowed into them. Vaughn had herself under control quickly, but Aneka was quite sure Cassandra would have noticed it too. That was confirmed a second later when Al said, ‘Cassandra wishes me to pass on that “that was evil.”’

‘If we’re cleared for it,’ Wallace said, ‘I’d like to drop into your university before we leave. As I recall, David Reman works there.’

Shaw looked like he was glad to have the chance to get in on the conversation, and annoyed that his companion appeared to have an agenda he had been unaware of. ‘The theoretical physicist? Yes. One of our academic stars.’

Wallace nodded. ‘I read his papers on degenerate matter and exotic stars. I believe I have some information for him which I can relay without causing any of that social disruption Doctor Gilroy mentioned. I’m afraid it will have to wait until we get word from New Earth, however.’

‘Of course,’ Shaw replied. ‘I think we’ve seen all we need to here. I’m quite satisfied that this ship holds no immediate danger and is in cautious, competent hands.’

Vaughn smiled. ‘Of course. I see no point in disturbing anyone further. Until we receive word from the Administration anyway.’ She turned and walked out, Drake allowing Shaw to follow her before escorting them to the airlock.

‘That one could be a problem,’ Aneka commented. ‘Goddard just doesn’t like the idea that I exist; she’s got profit as a motive.’

‘Sapphira Vista is the resort area,’ Ella supplied. ‘If she’s their Representative then she’s likely got backing from a couple of the companies there.’

‘Uh-huh. Aggy, check with Drake, but I think it’d be a good idea if you put as much of your time as possible into security.’

Aggy appeared on the wall monitor. ‘I believe that Captain Drake will agree with your assessment, Aneka.’

‘I think,’ Cassandra added, ‘that we all do.’

26.10.524 FSC.

‘There have been fourteen attempts to hack into my systems via remote connection,’ Aggy stated over breakfast.

‘Source?’ Drake asked.

‘The hackers have used several communications satellites. Without further investigation I cannot identify who is making the attempts. However, the methodologies used suggest multiple originators.’

‘Is there any chance they’ll get in?’ Ella asked.

Aggy looked almost affronted. ‘Ella, they are trying to hack an unfamiliar computer architecture inhabited by a superior AI.’

‘Sorry, Aggy. I was just asking.’

‘Apology accepted.’ Aggy’s image vanished from the wall screen and Aneka flashed Ella a grin.

‘Do we do anything about it?’ Aneka asked.

Drake shook his head. ‘As long as Aggy’s sure they can’t break her security we ignore it. We can report the attempts once we’re out of here. Without breaking protocol we can’t identify the source properly anyway.’

‘Let’s just hope no one decides to escalate things.’

‘I doubt it. I don’t think anyone’s that stupid.’

6.11.524 FSC.

The reply from New Earth came in mid-morning, ship time, and it came with a message tagged as ‘personal and secure’ for Aneka. The team watched the main message in the mess. It was short.

‘You lot are just plain trouble,’ Winter’s image said from the screen. Delta swallowed hard; she had never met the woman. ‘The Administration hasn’t a clue what to do with this, so they’re delaying, of course. A team from the local Survey Service will be up to check you over. You can trust them. Once you’re cleared you’ll come through to New Earth. Message ends.’

‘I have checked the protocols for your message, Aneka,’ Aggy said once Winter’s image had been replaced with hers. ‘You will need to receive it alone in your cabin and I will need to verify your identity before I can replay it. It requires your private key to decrypt.’

Aneka got to her feet and headed for the door. ‘See you guys later.’

Behind her she could hear Monkey talking to Delta. ‘Don’t worry about Winter. She’s like that, but she seems to like Aneka…’

It was true. Winter had supported Aneka over military objections during her initial evaluation. The spy mistress seemed to consider Aneka as a reliable resource to be protected at the very least, even if Aneka had turned down a job offer. Intelligence services had never been Aneka’s favourite thing in the world; she did not trust spies, end of story. But Winter seemed to trust her and without any good reason she could work out.

With her identity verified and her private key-code transmitted to the cabin’s terminal, Winter’s face appeared on the smaller screen in that room. ‘Congratulations, you’re in the middle of another mess.’ The image held up a hand as though forestalling an argument, even if Aneka could not reply to it anyway. ‘I know, I sent you into the hostage situation on Harriamon. There are going to be questions asked about your involvement in this. The scout team will be asking a lot of questions about what happened. Answer them honestly. I don’t want anyone suggesting you were evasive. One of the team is from my people. They’ll identify themselves with a private transponder code. Any trouble, talk to them.’

There was a pause as Winter appeared to consult something off to one side. ‘Okay. The mercs who came after you on Corax. They belong to a commercial military unit called the White Suns. Mostly operate on the Rim, or beyond it. They’ve done work for a lot of major corporations with eyes on establishing colonies, especially where there are already people where the corp wants to set up. So far we’ve been unable to identify who hired them for this op, but you can bet they were hired. The White Suns don’t do anything without money changing hands first. This wasn’t some terrorist thing; someone with a lot of money wants you for some reason. You should be safe on Sapphira. There’s no way anyone can respond to your presence that fast. When you get back to New Earth, watch your back. I’ll let you decide how much your friends need to know about this. Message ends.’

Aneka tapped her finger on the desk, frowning at the now blank screen. So someone else was after her for unknown reasons, and this time they had sent mercenaries with advanced combat armour.

‘What are you going to tell the others?’ Al asked. Of course, she was never really alone, but Winter knew that.

‘Nothing for now. She’s probably right about being safe here.’

‘Probably?’

‘Yeah, probably. When you do what I used to do for a living, you don’t just watch your own back all the time, you watch everyone else’s. Just because I think I’m safe here, doesn’t mean I’m letting my guard down.’

‘I will ensure our electronic warfare suite is fully operational then,’ Al said. ‘I wouldn’t want to fall down on my part of keeping us safe.’

~~~

Members of the Survey Service, commonly referred to as ‘scouts,’ were technically part of the Navy, but they tended not to consider themselves as such and they were certainly a special case. They were carefully selected from the lowest ranks early in their career based on an aptitude for self-reliance; there were far more Rim Worlders in the scouts as a proportion compared to the regular Navy. Then they were trained in survival in a number of conditions, and on the latest technology. They got the best equipment, bleeding-edge stuff. And they all had high security clearances.

The four scouts who came up on a streamlined, armed shuttle were all exceptionally fit, attractive, and dressed in combat suits similar to the ones the White Suns had used on Corax. Addison Peters fitted right in with them, except that he was no scout. Tall, lithe, attractive, with short, black hair and a hint of stubble on his chin a bare four hours after sunrise on Sapphira, his transponder chip signalled Aneka with his contact details, including a code which identified him as Federal Security. No one else looked at him twice, except Ella who was licking her lips when she did so, so Aneka figured that the extra data was for her eyes only.

One of the four scouts put down a large, metal case she was carrying and regarded Drake and Aneka for a second before nodding and smiling. ‘I’m Lieutenant Commander Trudy Killian, Survey Service. We’re here to conduct a full analysis of your ship, Captain Drake.’ She nodded her head to the left where a red-headed man was standing. ‘Lieutenant Edge will be leading the psychoanalysis of your crew. I assume we’ll have your full cooperation?’

‘There are a few… security issues,’ Drake replied.

Killian’s gaze swept over Aneka. ‘We’ve received a full read-in on your special circumstances.’

‘In which case, Lieutenant Commander, where do you wish to start?’

The scout became all business. ‘Edge, Peters, you’re with Miss Jansen. I’d like to take Doctors Wallace and Gilroy and go see this computer you’ve brought back with you.’

Drake nodded. ‘Use the mess. And I suggest you have Ella and Cassandra there too, they’ve been studying Aggy’s mind. That’ll leave Aneka’s cabin available for her interview.’

‘Aggy?’

‘I am the ship’s AI, Lieutenant Commander,’ Aggy said over the corridor speakers. ‘I was originally called Agroa Gar. Aneka felt Aggy was more acceptable in Federal.’

‘Huh. It really is a fully functional AI. All right people, let’s get this thing going. The sooner we’re done, the sooner these people can get on with their business.’

~~~

One of the cases Edge had brought up folded out into what turned out to be a sort of portable interrogation suite. Opened out it had two large lamps which were directed at Aneka; when the room lights were turned off the two interrogators would be in darkness. The same frame held a pair of cameras and a fairly standard chemical analyser. Edge folded up a screen behind it, presumably to display the data from the gadgets, and then produced some sort of sensor helmet from the other side of the case, starting towards Aneka with it.

Aneka held up her hand. ‘Okay, look… You guys have been briefed on what I am, right?’

‘We were read-in on it, yes,’ Edge replied.

‘Okay, well I’m guessing some of this because I’m sure interrogation has changed since my time, but… The big lights let you see me while I can’t see your reactions. Except that I can see a Jenlay in pitch darkness. That gadget presumably monitors brainwaves to detect lies, but I don’t have a brain, I have a computer. The cameras are looking for micro-expressions, thermal changes, and the chem-sniffer detects sweat, but my body is artificial. If I concentrate I don’t give off any of the normal signals. Sorry, but you’re going to have to work for this one.’

Peters laughed and Edge tossed the spider-web crown of electrodes back into his case. ‘This is going to be tough,’ Edge commented. ‘We need the full story of exactly what happened to you.’

‘I’ll try to make it easier,’ Aneka replied. Inside her head she added, ‘Al, interface into the wall screen and pull up my sensory data from when we noticed the wormhole effects.’

The area of the cabin’s wall designed for display went black and then switched to Aneka’s view of the interior of the station which had bridged the Agroa Gar to the Garnet Hyde. Her hands could be seen working on some cabling behind an access panel. Abraham Wallace’s voice sounded over the room speakers. ‘Everyone, the sensors are picking up some unusual electromagnetic effects outside the ship. I’m not entirely sure what to make of it.’

‘This is, what, your view of what happened?’ Edge asked.

‘Taken directly from my long-term storage. Just ask questions as required, and I’d suggest we skip forward through some of it or we’ll be here for a month. I can provide you with the full data set if required.’

Edge and Peters sat down and began to watch.

~~~

Peters had longer hair than Aneka had thought. The word had come through from Killian that there were no biological or chemical hazards and Aneka’s interrogators had removed their helmets with some relief. The man’s stubble was looking more pronounced too. They had been going over Aneka’s memories for six hours. Even skipping most of their stay in the arboretum and skimming over other parts, they had still only reached the decision to leave for home half an hour earlier.

‘Half of this stuff is going to take smarter people than me to analyse,’ Edge said, squeezing the bridge of his nose.

Peters nodded. ‘Look Barton, we’ve seen no evidence of coercion. Miss Jansen’s been so open it’s almost embarrassing. Do we need to keep going over this now?’ Aneka tried not to smirk; he had not looked embarrassed about anything he had seen, even the sex.

Edge frowned, thinking. ‘Is there anything else you want to add, Miss Jansen? If you can provide all of this as data files we can just make a report on what we’ve seen and they can sort out the rest on New Earth.’

‘There is one thing. We all agreed on it and it was our idea, not the AIs.’ The only people on this ship who know where Negral is are me and Aggy. Aggy is under orders not to reveal that information and I won’t be including it in my deposition. It’s the one way we have of ensuring that, say, the Herosians won’t go there and blow it up.’

‘Your idea,’ Edge asked, ‘not theirs?’

‘I can show you the discussions we had on it. Honestly, they were pretty keen to be out here talking to people. They’ve been isolated for a long time. It’s Gillian that pulled me up and stopped me from ordering them to let us go. You saw that. We’re being more cautious than they’d like, but they’re bowing to our greater knowledge of current galactic politics.’

Edge shrugged. ‘It’ll go in the report, but if it wasn’t their suggestion then it’s not relevant to the task at hand. We’d better get on with the others.’

Aneka laughed. ‘I admire your dedication, but you’d better take a break. You’re tired and tired people miss things. Check with your boss, but I think she’ll agree.’

‘She’s right,’ Peters said. ‘We should at least get some coffee in us. If we go to the mess we can do some informal chatting. People are more likely to slip that way and we get a rest.’

‘That’s very underhanded,’ Aneka commented. ‘I’m glad we have nothing to hide.’

~~~

Aneka re-entered the cabin to find Ella lying on the bunk with an arm draped over her eyes. Her session had been only two hours, but it looked like it had been pretty intense. Aneka figured she had been subjected to the full package and had come down as soon as Edge and Peters had turned up to collect Bashford.

‘You okay, love,’ Aneka asked as she sat down on the edge of the bed.

‘Two hours with a bright light shining in my eyes. I’ve got a headache. I’ll be fine once the painkillers kick in.’

‘Huh, yeah.’

Ella removed her arm and propped her head up on it. ‘You actually got trained to resist that kind of thing?’

‘Yeah, with the added benefits package.’ Ella gave her a quizzical look. ‘Stress positions, waterboarding, isolation, sodium pentothal.’

Ella giggled, and then winced. ‘They used truth serums back then?’

‘Most people thought they were useless, but we had to know what it felt like being under them. I’m surprised they haven’t made a real one by now.’

‘Nope. We’ve got psychics. You can’t drug someone into telling the truth, just make them a bit more trusting and gullible.’ She grinned at Aneka. ‘As I recall you have pheromone emitters that can do that.’

‘Huh. Don’t remind me.’

‘How about turning on the sex ones? I like those ones.’

Aneka shook her head. ‘You don’t need sex pheromones to make you horny. And I thought you had a headache.’

‘Didn’t you know? Orgasm is great for headaches.’

‘Sure it is,’ Aneka replied, but she started undressing anyway. One day she would have to say no to Ella. Just not today.

Arbonatura, Sapphira, 8.11.524 FSC.

The scouts had decided that there was nothing dangerous about the Garnet Hyde or its crew, but wanted a couple of days to go over their data and check for anything they might have missed. That was fine by the crew who wanted the opportunity to drop down to Sapphira. Killian agreed that that was fine as long as they did it in shifts and took Peters with them when they went.

So it was that the Garnet Hyde’s shuttle settled onto a landing pad just outside one of the northern towns of Arbonatura late in the morning. The town was called Chance and it had, apparently, been the first major development on the planet after colonisation about two hundred and fifty years earlier. That was the main reason it hosted the planet’s university, a sprawling complex of buildings and fields, primarily devoted to agricultural research.

Wallace was aboard. He wanted to talk to David Reman, which was a reason other than ‘taking a break,’ so his trip had been planned first. Gillian had decided that it was always good to see another university, so she was going too. Aneka and Ella were mainly just along for the ride, though Ella was Gillian’s assistant. Aneka still had such enthusiasm for different planets that no one could deny her visits to them. Shannon was along as pilot, and they had their guide, Peters, with them, which made quite the busload for Anthony Shaw who had come out to the airfield to pick them up.

‘You didn’t have to come out to be our taxi service,’ Gillian said to the politician.

Shaw gave her a shrug. ‘Our distinguished visitors from New Earth? Yeah, I did.’ He nodded to Wallace. ‘Reman is waiting for you, Doctor Wallace. Impatiently, I might add.’

Wallace smiled. ‘Let’s not keep the man waiting then.’

Chance was the kind of thing you expected to see in Hollywood films set in small towns in the middle of America. There were no buildings taller than two stories, the streets were wide. As they headed in through the northern side they were surrounded by single-storey houses which looked to Aneka as though they had seen better days, though the structures seemed solid and most of them had up-to-date paintwork. There was pride in the place; it had just been there for a long time and there was not that much spare cash going around.

‘It’s a nice little town,’ she commented.

‘You’ll get prettier and more modern over on Sapphira Vista,’ Shaw replied, a hint of pride in his voice, ‘but not with such nice people. People here care about their town. And they’re damn proud that they host the university. Oldest settlement on the planet.’

The town centre definitely looked like something out of the Mid-West, except that the buildings were largely Plascrete and various structural plastics. Aneka had seen little of New Earth, and Harriamon and Corax were underground. This place, the first major aboveground settlement she had seen outside the core, looked more like home. Not her home, maybe, but Old Earth. There was another thing about it that differentiated it from New Earth.

Aneka leaned towards Ella and lowered her voice. ‘You know, the people here wear clothes.’

Ella giggled. ‘We wear clothes.’

‘Yes, but they wear clothes which are actually opaque and not glued to the skin. This place could be an ordinary town in America.’

The big car, which Aneka would have classed as a pick-up of some sort, except that it was fully enclosed with two wide, bench seats behind the driver, turned left as they left the town’s central business district. There was no auto-drive on this vehicle; Shaw was doing all the driving. The thing seemed to have an automatic gearbox, but that was about it. From the sound of it, it was powered off some sort of internal combustion engine as well.

And then they were driving through a lot of low buildings. They were old-looking, probably built when the town was and with a sense of grandeur. The university too had the feeling of an American university campus rather than the high-tech, Star Trek look of the University of New Earth. There were trees between the buildings to provide shade, and students sitting under them. This looked more like New England than the Mid-West, but it still felt more like home than any other place Aneka had been.

Shaw pulled up in front of a large, low building with huge windows and mock brickwork walls. ‘This is the sciences building. Most of what goes on here is agricultural. Not much call for theoretical work, literature, that kind of thing, but we cater for it.’

‘Mister Reman has written several very interesting papers,’ Wallace said. ‘His work is exceptional, even compared to theoreticians from the core and the Torem seats of learning.’

‘Oh, we’re proud of him. Anyway, I can take you through to his office. Is everyone coming?’

‘I will,’ Gillian replied.

‘I think I’d like to stay out here in the sun,’ Ella said looking out at the dappled light coming down through the trees. ‘Even if I wish I’d changed clothes.’

Peters looked torn. ‘I guess I should go in.’

‘I’ll drop them off and come out to make sure Miss Narrows doesn’t get into trouble,’ Shaw offered. ‘I’m not exactly into all that science stuff.’

‘I’ll stick with Ella,’ Aneka said, opening the door. ‘I’m not a scientist either.’

‘Right,’ Shaw said. ‘I’ll be out in five or ten minutes. Don’t stray too far.’

Ella was following Aneka out of the door. ‘We’ll be right here, under a tree.’

Stretched out under the nearest tree she could find, Ella closed her eyes and smiled. Even if she was dressed in one of the Xinti shipsuits, it felt good to be out in real sunlight. ‘Is this place really like Old Earth?’

‘Bits of Old Earth. Mostly places I’ve seen on TV and in movies, uh, vids.’

‘I’ve been around you long enough to know what TV was,’ Ella pointed out, grinning.

‘Huh, yeah. This place looks kind of like some of the Ivy League universities they always seemed to be showing on TV. I’m not exactly sure what the Ivy League actually was. I think maybe Harvard was in it. The buildings here are fake brick instead of real brick, and I don’t think we’d have got the looks we’re getting here.’

‘You’re half-naked, I’m in a figure-hugging vacuum suit, and they’re dressed to meet their virgin aunts. A few looks aren’t surprising.’

‘There’s less lust and more suspicion.’

‘Oh. They probably don’t see many core worlders.’

‘We aren’t, but I don’t suppose they know that.’ Shrugging, Aneka settled down beside her girlfriend, but she did not close her eyes. Something felt off and, with the warning Winter had given her, she was taking no chances. Should have brought a gun.

‘I don’t think that would have gone down well,’ Al commented. ‘Peters is armed if it comes to that, and you are not exactly helpless.’

‘True, but using the pulse weapon would take some explaining.’

‘Not if you use the lethal mode. No visible effect and it’ll be days before they figure out anything odd happened.’

‘That’s still a last resort.’

It took Shaw seven minutes and sixteen seconds to emerge from the sciences building. Aneka noticed that most of the academics around the area relaxed noticeably as soon as he was with them. It seemed that having a local politician nearby gave some sort of stamp of approval.

‘Are you two happy here?’ he asked. ‘We can take a walk around campus if you like.’

Ella stretched and climbed to her feet. ‘Sure. It’s a lovely campus. Aneka says it reminds her of places on Old Earth.’

That seemed to impress the man. ‘Really? The architects were building something modern when it was put up, but that was over a century ago.’

Aneka stood up, smiling. ‘Not many places I’ve seen remind me of home. And actually, this doesn’t, but it reminds me of places I’ve seen.’ She sighed. ‘Still, I’ve a new home now. Ella’s flat is gorgeous, but I’m still not really used to living in a city.’

They started off towards a fountain they could see across the grass, not quickly, no one was in a hurry. ‘No real cities in Arbonatura,’ Shaw said. ‘We’ve a population of thirteen million spread across a huge area. There’s a small city over on Sapphira Vista, but here it’s towns and farmsteads. A lot of the population live on the farms.’

‘It sounds idyllic,’ Ella commented, though Aneka knew she quite liked Yorkbridge where she lived.

‘Oh, I wouldn’t say that. We work hard. Sapphira has a pretty eccentric orbit and making sure the crops grow is a fairly complicated process. Irrigation in the summer, just surviving through the winter. Animals have a hard time in the cold months. You’ve arrived in late spring. You’re lucky. It’ll get really hot in another month.’

‘I don’t mind hot,’ Ella replied, grinning. ‘Though I get the feeling nude sunbathing might be frowned upon.’

‘Uh… Well…’

Aneka’s eyes caught the slight glint of sunlight on metal and her attention snapped to the gun in the hands of a man who did not really look like a student. She saw the weapon rising, saw that its owner had clothes more like a farm worker than an academic, saw his expression of fear mixed with determination. She was moving before she realised it, closing the distance between herself and the gunman. He had not even seen her, his focus was elsewhere. Aneka realised with a start that he was aiming for Shaw.

‘Gun!’ The word snapped through the air as Aneka took the final pace. The only person who reacted was the gunman, his attention suddenly drawn to the tall, white-haired woman who was suddenly so close. His focus broken, he had no idea what to do as her left hand wrapped around the barrel of his pistol, twisting it upward, and her right struck his wrist briefly paralysing his fingers. The gun came free; Aneka was dimly aware of an identification image appearing in-vision stating that it was a seven-point-five millimetre caseless automatic with zero threat potential to her. Her fist was busy burying itself in the would-be assassin’s solar plexus as she took in the information. As he doubled over her elbow slammed into his back, and then he was down and her knee was pinning him while she put him in a hammer lock.

Suddenly there was noise. Men and women were screaming; Aneka thought one of them might have been Ella. Looking up at Shaw she yelled, ‘Don’t just stand there, get some cops!’

~~~

‘That was… amazing!’ Ella said, again. ‘I mean, I didn’t even really see him and then he was just… Wham! On the floor.’

‘That’s what I used to do for a living, Ella,’ Aneka replied.

‘Take down gunmen?’ Shaw asked.

‘I did personal protection details, hostage rescue, that kind of thing. I guess the training never lets go. Why would someone want you dead, Representative?’

‘A very good question,’ Peters put in. He had quietly and with no fuss taken over the investigation from the Peacekeepers, leaving them to cart off the gunman.

‘I… You’re sure he was after me?’

‘Absolutely sure,’ Aneka told him. ‘He didn’t even know I was there until I was standing in his face.’

‘Well… No, I don’t think anyone…’

‘You’re selling yourself short, sir,’ Peters said. ‘You’ve made a few enemies since coming to office.’ Well, it seemed the security people on Sapphira were actually up to their job. ‘You had strong support to get into the position, but the guy you beat came from one of the old farming families. Word is they aren’t pleased.’

‘I didn’t think you had elections anymore,’ Aneka interjected.

‘We don’t,’ Ella replied. ‘When one Representative leaves office, however, the replacement comes from a pool of candidates and is selected by a committee of the other Representatives and the world’s Senator. There can be a lot of political jockeying to get in.’

‘Then there’s the pressure you’ve been putting on the local smugglers.’ Peters went on. ‘Either of those groups could have sent someone after you.’

‘Smugglers?’ Aneka asked.

‘They traffic drugs into the Federation, people out. Every so often one of their operations gets nailed, but they’re good, slick. Representative Shaw has been putting additional funds into a task force that’s trying to take them out for good.’

Aneka nodded. ‘Maybe this guy was put up to it, but he didn’t come directly from either of those. I’d expect a hired assassin from a family operation. An outsider with no connection to them. A professional gang would send a professional too. This was a guy with a low-tech pistol. You’ll need to interrogate him to find out why he did it, but I suspect he’s just nuts.’

‘Nuts?’ Shaw said, frowning. ‘Why would anyone decide to kill me because they were insane?’

‘Lots of reasons. You’re a popular politician in the public eye. Shoot you and they get their face plastered all over your news networks. Maybe it was to impress a friend, or a girl. The Secret Service, uh, the people charged with protecting one of the heads of state on Old Earth, they used to call them “jackals.” They were hard to protect against because they were just ordinary people, right up until they shot someone. There was one guy shot someone famous because he thought it would impress an actress he was fixated on. They usually turn out to be psychologically disturbed.’

‘It wouldn’t happen in the core,’ Ella commented. ‘That kind of behaviour is detected in childhood and treated.’

Shaw’s eyes narrowed. ‘Huh. I’d expect a necro to come out with a comment like that.’

Aneka saw the hurt in Ella’s eyes and spoke first. ‘I realise you’re in shock, but there’s no need to be rude. Ella was born on Harriamon. It’s an underground mining colony on the Rim. She’s quite well aware of the less perfect medical and educational systems you have because she grew up with them.’

‘I… apologise, Miss Narrows. I’m not quite myself.’

‘I’m a psychologist,’ Ella replied. ‘I can understand your disorientation. And I don’t really look like a lunyen wan nijen.’

‘I really must learn Rimmic,’ Aneka said. She pointed at Shaw. ‘And you should think about getting a bodyguard.’

The Representative grimaced, sighed, and then turned a grin on Aneka. ‘I don’t suppose you’re available?’

‘I have enough trouble keeping myself alive,’ Aneka replied wryly. ‘I don’t need someone else to worry about.’

~~~

‘What did you mean?’ Ella asked. She was curled up in the crook of Aneka’s arm as they lay on their bunk. ‘You said you had enough trouble keeping yourself alive.’

‘Winter’s message. She tracked down the mercs who attacked us on Corax. She thinks someone else is trying to get their hands on me. Doesn’t know who yet.’

Ella’s voice took on a slightly accusing tone. ‘And you were planning on telling me when?’

‘When we got back to New Earth. She didn’t think there was any chance of them getting someone here fast enough and I didn’t want to worry you until you needed to be worried.’

‘So when you saw that man…’

‘I was a little surprised when I realised he was targeting Shaw, yes. I think if my brain was slower I wouldn’t have worked it out until afterwards.’

The annoyance was gone in an instant; that was so Ella. ‘Thank Vashma for a Xinti combat chassis, again.’

‘Oh no, that was all me. I’m faster now, but I didn’t need to be. I could have done that when I was Human.’

‘Wow.’ There was silence for a second. ‘I’ve never really seen you… work before. There was that guy you pulled off me on Odanari, but I couldn’t see anything really. He just went backwards into darkness and died. This time… You just… moved. Like you knew exactly what you were doing and how to deal with him. I’ve never seen you like that.’

‘Sobering isn’t it? You’re sharing your bed with a trained killing machine on a hair trigger.’

Ella shifted, snuggling tighter against Aneka’s side. ‘You didn’t kill him.’

‘I could have. In about ten different ways. I’m lethal. I was even before the Xinti gave me super-strength and a virtually indestructible body.’

‘Maybe,’ Ella said softly, ‘but I don’t think I’ve ever felt safer.’

FScV Garnet Hyde, 10.11.524 FSC.

The flight back to New Earth was going to take just over thirty-eight days and Ella had decided the day before they left Sapphira that she was going to stay awake. She claimed the reason was entirely educational. She was going to speak Rimmic the whole time until Aneka’s translation software had it figured out and she could understand it. Al estimated that it would take no longer than two days to reach the same competence in the language as Ella, but the redhead was clearly in one of her affectionate moods and putting her in cold sleep for a relatively short trip would have been cruel. It was Drake’s decision, ultimately, but he was not that mean either.

‘If she comes out of this “educational” trip only able to translate moans, expletives, and the names of erogenous zones I’ll never let you stay awake again,’ Drake told Ella as he settled into his plastic coffin. He was the last one in, as always.

‘I’ve got Cassandra to keep me in line,’ Ella replied.

‘She doesn’t know any Rimmic,’ Drake told her, ‘so we will be conducting tests of Aneka’s vocabulary when we wake up.’

Ella pouted briefly and then added, ‘I honestly don’t think even I could spend thirty-eight days doing nothing but sex.’

Drake’s eyes narrowed. ‘Don’t try,’ he said firmly, and then flashed her a grin before lying back in the pod.

Ella grinned back, and waited for the pod to close and Drake’s eyes to close before she headed for the door of the cold-sleep room. ‘Aggy, you can close down the air circulation in here.’

‘Thank you, Ella,’ Aggy said from the ceiling. ‘Aneka is currently in the hold area and has asked that you make your way there.’

‘The hold?’ Ella frowned.

‘Yes, Ella. The pressurised section, obviously.’

Confused, Ella headed down one of the ladders between decks to the hold area. She found Aneka pulling the last of four thick, padded mats into place in the middle of the hold. The tall robot woman was stripped down to just her leotard, her boots and leggings lying near one of the walls.

‘Aneka? What’s up?’

Aneka grinned at her. ‘I figured that if you’re teaching me Rimmic, I should teach you something too. So you’re going to learn some self-defence.’

‘I am?’ Ella asked, her expression sceptical.

‘You are. And I think we’ll put you on a bit of a fitness programme, tone up those muscles a little.’

Ella looked down at her body sheathed in Xinti-engineered super-cloth. ‘You think I need toning up?’

‘I think that if we make you a little stronger and a bit more trained, I won’t need to worry about you so much and you’ll be more confident about yourself.’ Aneka looked at her.

‘Okay, so I have a few little insecurities. Who doesn’t?’

‘No one I know of,’ Aneka replied, grinning, ‘but maybe we can get rid of some. You’ll love it. Lots of rolling around on the mats with me. Get those boots off and we’ll get started.’

Bending down Ella began unstrapping her boots. Well, the rolling around sounded good and… ‘I guess I’ll look better in a cropped top if I tighten up my abs.’

Aneka chuckled. It was not as though Ella was shallow, but she came from a culture that tended to view beauty as a given, and an ideal. ‘Okay, the first thing you need to learn is how to fall without hurting yourself.’

‘That sounds like it’s going to hurt.’

‘That’s why you’ll learn quickly.’

Ella let out a groan.

~~~

‘Wu yu wuda ooshang yushang,’ Ella said over the sound of the shower.

‘What did she say?’ Cassandra asked.

‘Uh… She’s complaining about being bruised. “I have bruises on my bruises,” I think.’

The android was on the top bunk; there was, they had decided, no point in using more than one room when Aneka and Ella only ever used the bottom bunk. Looking down she said, ‘That software of yours works fast.’

‘It’s still guessing a lot, but it’s got the basic tenses sorted out and it’s building vocabulary. She’s been complaining about bruises a lot.’

‘Na shu ye wuy wa chung shan tung tao ting ta chung she,’ Ella said as she emerged from the shower.

‘You are not,’ Aneka replied. ‘There are several parts of your body which aren’t purple.’

Ella’s eyes narrowed. ‘Ne chu shutzi soor tzi pebeen sing chen qua.’

‘Now she says I’m just doing this to get out of sex.’

‘That seems unlikely,’ Cassandra commented. She had returned to lying flat on the bunk. ‘I can’t recall you ever actually refusing her.’

‘No, I…’ Aneka was interrupted by a long series of syllables which left her blinking at Ella.

‘What was all that?’

‘There is no way I’m translating that,’ Aneka replied. ‘For one thing, I didn’t understand half the words, and for another what I did understand involved what she was going to do to me when she can move properly again.’

Cassandra peered over the edge of the bed at Aneka. ‘I can’t imagine why you’d be bashful about it. I’ll probably be in the room when she does it to you.’

‘She does find Human behaviour quite fascinating,’ Al observed. Aneka was not sure, but it sounded a lot like he was trying not to laugh.

‘Wer chum ye tamada yuchoi,’ Ella said, grinning like a wolf that has just spotted a wounded animal.

‘I’m not translating that either,’ Aneka stated flatly.

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Aneka hit the mat on her back and Ella immediately went for an arm lock which would have worked perfectly on another Jenlay. It was not quite as effective on someone with motorised joints, but Aneka went with it since she was trying to teach Ella to fight people, not robots.

‘You are getting quite good at this,’ Aneka commented.

‘And your Rimmic is just about perfect,’ Ella replied. ‘Of course, this isn’t a real situation. I think I’d freeze if someone really attacked me.’

‘That’s why we drill it into your muscles. When your body can do this without you having to think about it, you’ll just react.’

Ella let go of Aneka’s wrist and helped her up. ‘There’s more to it than that though. When you took down that assassin you were so relaxed, but you seemed to know what you were doing, where you were going.’

‘That takes experience, practice. You don’t need to be able to do that. You need to know how to get out of dangerous situations, and that usually means running like hell. What I’m teaching you is for when that doesn’t work.’ She checked the time. ‘We’ll take a break. You need food and fluids.’

They were walking to the mess when Al spoke. ‘Aneka, I have a… proposition.’

‘Uh, what kind of proposition?’

‘Well, as you know, Cassandra is a rather physical entity. With regards to her… expression of affection.’

‘Yeah, it was mentioned, but you don’t have a body and she can’t express her affection for you that way.’

‘Yes. We have something we would like to try. A practical trial of a theory we have come up with, but it would need your help.’

‘Uh… You said you couldn’t control my body.’

‘And I can’t, but I do have access to your mind. I generally limit myself to your conscious thoughts and I almost always back out entirely when you and Ella are being intimate. The overload of sensory data is… a little alarming, but I can “feel” everything you feel.’

Aneka frowned. ‘You’ve been with me long enough to know that’s not all there is to it. Part of sex is the shared experience. It would be me making love to Cassandra even if she was doing it with both of us.’

‘I think she should explain that part. The summary is that she feels that the interaction might satisfy her needs and… If you’re willing I would like to try.’

‘I need to talk this over with Ella. This is a bit more intimate than her orgies with the neighbours. That’s recreation, this is deeper.’

‘Cassandra said you would wish to do that,’ Al replied calmly. ‘She agrees that Ella should be willing to allow you to participate and won’t go ahead without that agreement.’

‘You two have thought about this a lot.’

‘On and off for the past two months.’

‘Right.’ Aloud she said, ‘Ella, Cassandra and Al have something they want to try out.’

‘Yes,’ Ella said.

‘You haven’t even heard what it is?’

‘Cassandra wants to have sex with you, which is kind of like having sex with Al. I’m not quite sure how it’s going to work for Al, but I think you should give it a go.’ Aneka blinked. ‘I don’t need you to do the basic training you taught me. You can have the cabin all to yourselves this afternoon.’

‘Uh… You realise…’

‘That it’s more intimate than sharing you with Kat and Dillon, or Gillian, or Drake and Shannon. Uh-huh, but it’s more like you’re acting as a surrogate. She won’t be making love to you, exactly. I’d imagine they’ll be communicating with each other all the time. Actually, I’m more worried about you.’

‘Me?’ Aneka squeaked. Ella had obviously come up with the same idea and thought about it a fair bit herself. So why didn’t I?

‘Yes. You might come out of this feeling a bit… used.’

‘Oh. I hadn’t thought of it like that.’

Ella nodded. It was a professional, psychologist sort of nod. ‘I think you should think of it just like the situation with Kat and Dillon. Ignore the emotion and just view it as something recreational. Be a little detached about it.’

‘Right. Actually, I’m starting to just feel thick. If everyone else has been thinking about this for ages, why didn’t I come up with the idea?’

Ella gave her a grin. ‘Too close to the problem, and you’re neither an AI nor a psychologist. Cassandra can distance herself professionally, so can I. Al was made for sitting back and analysing behaviour.’ The grin got broader. ‘Actually, I think it could be a very interesting experiment. I mean, Al wasn’t designed to feel pleasure the way you were. Will he get out of it what Cassandra presumably hopes he will? Will she?’

Aneka’s shoulders slumped. ‘Now I feel like a lab rat.’

‘Maybe,’ Ella replied, ‘but a really sexy one.’

~~~

‘I don’t think I broke them,’ Cassandra said, her tone a little uncertain. She was standing beside Ella, both of them looking down at Aneka who was lying on the bottom bunk with her arm draped over her eyes.

‘You were at it for a couple of hours,’ Ella replied. ‘That’s bound to take some recovery. Did you enjoy it?’

‘Yes, though not in the way you would. I have neither the organs nor the software to appreciate sex as you or Aneka would. My brain reacts positively to my giving pleasure to my partner. A basic feedback system, but effective for the kind of role my model was built for. I can mimic Jenlay behaviour, but it is just that, faking. There was no need for it.’

Ella nodded. ‘So… It was two hours of you working Aneka into a lather? No wonder she’s tired.’

‘I’m not tired,’ Aneka mumbled. ‘I’m shell-shocked. I think Al’s the same.’

‘I assume you enjoyed it?’ Ella asked, grinning.

‘I think I died. Several times. Her tongue…’

Ella looked around at Cassandra, frowning, and then light dawned. ‘You’re model has an extensible tongue. That has to be amazing!’

Cassandra’s eyes dipped away. ‘I’ve never had any complaints about my performance.’

Ella giggled. ‘I want to go over how it felt for all three of you. I know it’s kind of crass to reduce this to a psychology experiment, but I don’t think this kind of thing has ever been attempted before and we owe it to Science!’

Cassandra’s laugh was musical, joyful in a way Aneka did not think she had heard from the android before. That, more than anything, made it worthwhile. ‘All right, we’ll do that. And, if we decide to do this again, I think we should all be involved.’

Ella beamed. ‘I was really hoping you’d say that.’

Aneka considered what would happen if Cassandra taught Ella a few of the tricks she had just performed and groaned. ‘I’m doomed.’

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Drake sat in the mess surrounded by three attractive women, but his attention was entirely focussed on the light snack he was consuming along with a lot of water dosed with electrolytes. Cold sleep would do that to you.

Strictly, according to the regulations, he had not been required to do a flight check because the trip was shorter than fifty days, but with a new engine and a new computer he had decided that safe was better than sorry. He need not have worried; halfway through the journey they were right on course and there were no problems to report. Aggy had looked pleased when he had congratulated her on running things so well.

‘So what have you three been up to?’ he asked, mostly for something to say.

‘Ella’s been learning self-defence,’ Aneka replied. ‘I’ve learned Rimmic. Cassandra has been analysing some experimental data.’

‘Experimental data?’

Cassandra had, in fact, been studying data Al had collected during their ‘experiment’ and was finding it fascinating. She claimed she was close to discovering how Aneka’s brain perceived an orgasm, as well as forming some very interesting theories regarding Al’s reaction to it. ‘It’d take a while to explain,’ Aneka said, because she did not want to. ‘It’s a… problem to do with machine psychology.’

‘A fascinating one,’ Cassandra agreed.

Drake looked between them and then shook his head. Whatever it was, he clearly did not need to know. ‘If I might make a suggestion? Take some time to go over what we plan to say to the Administration Reps when we get to New Earth. We’ll be there in about two weeks. It might be worth reviewing our plans.’

‘I believe that would be wise,’ Cassandra agreed. ‘Between myself, Ella, and Al we can analyse the psychology, and Aneka can provide a military and “real-world” viewpoint.’

Drake finished his bottle of isotonic water and stretched. ‘Sounds good to me. I need to get back in the freezer; I’m starting to feel Jenlay again.’

‘Can’t have that,’ Aneka replied, grinning. ‘We’re getting everyone up three days before arrival, right?’

Drake got to his feet, followed by the three women. ‘We’ve nothing to prepare aside from ourselves. That should be enough. Hopefully that’s being over-cautious.’

‘Huh,’ Aneka grunted. ‘We’ll be dealing with politicians. I don’t think we can be too cautious.’

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‘We should plan something,’ Ella said. ‘I mean, I know we’re probably going to be busy, but that’s all the more reason to plan something so we can take a break.’

Aneka looked at her from the washroom, a towel busy rubbing over her back. ‘You’re making less sense than usual, love.’

‘It’s going to be Christmas soon. The twenty-fifth, right? That’s mid-week break, and then the next weekend is First Day. We should plan something.’

Cassandra had the distant look about her eyes which suggested she was busy working on documents inside her own brain, but she was not entirely oblivious to her surroundings. ‘What is “Christmas,” please?’

‘It was this festival they had on Old Earth,’ Ella said enthusiastically. ‘A family time with presents, and eating a lot, and drinking too much… And we could sit around and watch bad vids and, uh… Well it’s mostly about being together. Last year we were in space. We’ll be home for this one.’

Aneka looked a little sceptical. ‘Well, my “family” now is this crew. I’d have to invite everyone and there’s no way we can have everyone in our flat. Plus the kitchen isn’t up to it.’

‘I bet we could get Gillian to host it,’ Ella countered. ‘She’s got a huge house, and a big kitchen.’

‘And she’s asleep and can’t agree.’

Ella grinned brightly. ‘Oh, she will, and she’ll have five days to say so before we take over her home.’ The redhead was starting to bounce, always a sign of impending danger. ‘We’ll need presents, and food, and costumes…’

‘Costumes?’

‘I’m sure we need costumes.’

‘Uh…’ Aneka looked at the slightly unsure expression Ella had developed. ‘Well, I’m sure we can dress you up as an elf.’

‘Fridgy!’ Ella replied, beaming again. ‘What’s an elf?’

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‘Are you going to show me?’ Ella asked as they walked down to the cold-sleep room.

‘No,’ Aneka replied. She was trying not to smirk, and failing.

‘But…’

‘No. It’s a surprise. It’s one of your presents. You don’t get to see it until Christmas morning.’

‘That does seem to be the general idea, Ella,’ Cassandra pointed out.

‘Yes, but… I want to know,’ Ella whined. ‘I’m going to have to wear it.’

‘You’ll love it, now shush, the others should be coming to…’

‘In approximately fourteen seconds,’ Aggy supplied. ‘I believe Delta will be the first to wake again.’

‘And Gillian will complain about her age,’ Aneka added.

‘Uh-huh,’ Ella agreed. ‘We should probably wait until she’s eaten before asking her about the party.’

‘Uh-huh.’ Aneka turned towards Delta’s pod a fraction of a second before it opened.

‘Uh! Oh Vashma’s tits I am never going to get used to that,’ Delta groaned taking the bottle of water Aneka handed her. ‘Next time I’m staying awake with you guys.’ She sucked down water, looking to her left as Monkey let out a groan. ‘I don’t care if I have to pay with my body,’ she added.

Aneka giggled. ‘Believe me, on long flights you’re better off in there.’

‘I don’t know,’ Monkey put in after a drink. ‘Military vessels’ crews stay awake all the time. We sleep to cut down on resource usage. No one actually likes it.’ He took another pull on his bottle. ‘If she’s paying with her body, I want a cut.’

‘Ten per cent?’ Aneka suggested.

‘I think Drake will want some of that action,’ Ella said, keeping her face straight which had to be an effort for her.

‘And Shannon,’ Monkey agreed, ‘though she can probably pay them both off at the same time…’

‘I withdraw my suggestion,’ Delta said. Her cheeks were a delicate shade of red.

‘Shame,’ Aneka said, grinning mischievously.

Bashford sat up to get his bottle of water, ‘Quit teasing our newest crewmember,’ he said before pulling down a long suck of water. Delta relaxed visibly. ‘Oh,’ Bashford added, ‘if she changes her mind again my cut’s five per cent.’

Delta let out a whimper.

~~~

‘All right,’ Gillian said, ‘let’s get started now that everyone’s blood sugar is back up to normal and we’ve stopped teasing Delta.’

Delta blushed, again. ‘I’m sure I was up to about a hundred and fifty per cent,’ she grumbled.

‘We need to be sure we’re all singing from the same staves when we get in front of the Administration,’ Gillian continued, ‘so we’re going to spend the next couple of days going over everything. Frankly I doubt they’ll be calling on most of us to consult on the diplomatic proceedings, but there are bound to be questions.’

‘Yeah,’ Delta said, ‘as if the scouts weren’t bad enough.’

Gillian gave her best lecturer-reassuring-a-student smile. ‘You’ll be fine. You tell them what you saw, what you thought. You’ve nothing to hide. None of us has.’

‘Well…’ Delta frowned. ‘No, I guess we don’t,’ she conceded.

‘Exactly. I believe that their main concern for most of us will be to ensure that we were not influenced in some way.’

‘I expect they’ll want to use some additional verification methods,’ Shannon said. ‘Federal Security has a number of psychics on their payroll. Good ones.’

‘Does it hurt?’ Delta asked. ‘I’ve never had my mind read.’

‘As long as you don’t try to resist them, you’ll be fine. Put up a fight and it can get uncomfortable. If you want, I can show you later. I promise not to dig too deep.’

Delta straightened her back. ‘They will. I’d prefer if you dug as deep as you can.’

Shannon did not look keen, but she nodded. Delta needed to be at ease about the process, if it happened. Aneka wondered what it did to Shannon. ‘Anyone else?’ the blonde asked.

No one seemed to feel the need, which seemed to please their resident psychic. Aneka, however, did have a problem. ‘What about me and Cassandra? Psionics are going to be useless against us.’

‘We have the sensory memories from both of you,’ Gillian said. ‘I’d imagine they’ll go over those in minute detail. That’s probably more precise than psionics, once they’ve had technicians verify that nothing’s been faked.’ Aneka nodded and Gillian continued. ‘Abraham and I will be handling most of the science questions. Abraham will be fielding theory and application. I’ll be handling history and social implications. Ella and Cassandra will be fielding psychology and machine psychology. Drake, Bash, and Aneka have the military aspects covered, and Aneka can report on anything they need to know about the various projects Evolution presided over.’ She looked down at Aneka. ‘You’re okay with that?’

‘I can report what I was told and my thoughts on it, sure.’

‘Good enough. Now, Aggy. You’re going to be acting as their ambassador, essentially. Communication using their systems is going to be faster than it would normally be, but it will still take over a day to get a response from Negral.’

‘Yes, Doctor,’ Aggy said, her image appearing on the wall screen. ‘I have been briefed extensively. I have every contingency which could be thought of covered in my databases, and additional plans for handling things which were not considered. The AIs believe that I will be able to handle most requests immediately with confirmation coming from them the following day.’

Gillian nodded. ‘All right. Bash and I will be attempting to catch you out tomorrow. I want to go over historical records the day after. Abraham, I suggest you and Cassandra go over the technical stuff, and Cassandra and Ella should make sure they are telling the same story. Drake, Aneka, work on the military issues. Aneka knows their weapons and Drake knows ours. Everyone else, we have the recordings of your interviews on Sapphira, review them carefully. If you think something is wrong, be ready to admit it and explain why.’

The team nodded at her; everyone was ready and knew what they had to do. ‘However, most of us have just come out of cold sleep. We need to be up to mental speed for this. I suggest we take what remains of today to relax and get ready. We have a lot of work to do. Let’s be ready to do it well.’

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Aneka lay spooned against Ella. The redhead had been asleep for a couple of hours, happily cradled in her lover’s arms, but Aneka had stayed awake along with the other non-organic members of the crew. They communicated in silence, networked together in what amounted to a private Internet chat room.

‘Eight hours until we exit warp,’ Aneka said. ‘Do you think we’re ready?’

‘I do not believe we can be more ready,’ Aggy replied.

‘If we do much more preparation we will be in danger of sounding rehearsed,’ Cassandra said. ‘This is not a play. We need to sound natural. Obviously we need to be confident and know our parts, but an overly perfect performance will raise suspicions.’

‘I am most worried about Monkey and Delta,’ Al stated. ‘They’re young. They will be nervous.’

‘Monkey’s a decade older than I… was,’ Aneka replied. ‘Delta’s about my age.’

‘Comparatively they lack your experience. Monkey has issues with authority stemming from his father. Delta is still insecure in the core environment.’

‘Agreed,’ Cassandra said, ‘but their nervousness may be an advantage. They will balance the confidence of everyone else.’

‘Let’s just hope the Federal Administration is willing to be reasonable about all this then,’ Aneka said. She was not entirely confident about that. Jenlay had robot issues stemming from the Xinti War. The Herosians were just going to be unreasonable, full stop, but it was possible the technical advances on offer might sway them. The Torem were an entirely unknown quantity, but she hoped they were open to at least talking to the AIs.

‘There could be a problem with us holding these negotiations on New Earth,’ Cassandra commented. ‘The other races may see it as a preference. The Jenlay are being singled out for special treatment.’

‘It’s just a matter of proximity,’ Aneka countered. It was not a problem she had considered.

‘Yes, but they may not see it that way.’

‘Huh.’ Aneka checked the time and sighed. ‘I’d better shut down for the night. It’s probably going to be a long day.’

‘Good night, Aneka,’ Aggy said. ‘Don’t worry. I’m sure everything will work out for the best.’

Aneka settled herself and initiated her sleep cycle. She really wished she was as confident about it as Aggy was.

~~~

‘Three staves,’ Ella announced, her voice triumphant as she put down her cards, pushing the three of the matching suit out for proof.

Aneka grinned at her and put her own cards down on the cabin’s table. ‘You got me. Two pairs.’

‘Yay!’ Ella exclaimed reaching out to collect the cards together. ‘One to me, that’s…’

‘Three to you, Ella,’ Aggy supplied. ‘You owe Aneka seventy-two hours of “worship and adoration.” I must admit I don’t understand the stakes. You seem to adore each other quite enough as it is.’

‘I think Ella had some more physical forms of worship in mind when she thought it up,’ Aneka replied. ‘It’s a good thing she enjoys “worshipping” me because she’s really bad at this game.’

Ella pouted, but did not deny anything; she was terrible at Fives. It was not exactly a tough game, but it had nuances, and the rules were a bit like draw poker. Doing well at it was as much a matter of psychology as luck. There were five suits to the deck, each consisting of ten cards. The probabilities were different, but the basic arrangements were the same as poker. Ella’s problem was that she could not bluff to save her life. Still she kept playing, possibly because she liked losing.

‘Aggy,’ Aneka asked as Ella started to deal another hand, ‘what’s happening? We should be out of warp by now, but I haven’t heard the fusion drive power up.’

‘We exited warp two minutes, seventeen seconds ago, Aneka,’ the computer replied. ‘We have been ordered to hold position until two frigates arrive to escort us to the orbital transit station.’

‘Two? We’re getting more popular.’

‘I am currently tracking the FNf Delta Brigantia and the FNf Castellan Grant on intercept course. Time to intercept is eight minutes, fifty-three seconds. Estimated time to docking is twenty-three minutes, forty-two seconds.’

Aneka picked up her cards, barely glancing at them. She dropped two of them. ‘Two more. What class is the Castellan Grant, Aggy? I’ve only ever seen the Delta-class ones.’

‘A General Commander-class frigate, Aneka. While largely superseded by the Deltas, the General Commander is still used as a battleship escort vessel.’

‘Battleship? Is the Admiral Banfry within transponder range?’

‘The FNb Admiral Banfry is stationed near the transit station we have been ordered to dock with.’

Ella flicked a glance at Aneka. ‘It’s usually stationed around New Earth or the nearby systems. It doesn’t mean he’s here because we are.’

‘Uh-huh. Want to bet he won’t be around when we walk onto the station?’

Looking at her cards, Ella dropped four and took replacements from the pack. ‘No, I think I’d lose.’

Aneka gave her a smirk. ‘Raise,’ she said.

New Earth Transit Station Two.

They walked through the docking bridge two by two, not sure exactly what to expect when they got into the reception lounge at the far side. Drake and Gillian led the group with Aneka and Ella behind them. The tension was almost palpable, even though they all knew that no one was going to shoot them on sight. Aneka’s view was that the frigates would have blown them apart if that was going to happen. She had not mentioned that to anyone, but she was pretty sure Drake had considered it.

The first sign was not good; Aneka counted twenty armed marines as soon as she walked into the room, Al putting up a tactical map and initial attack vectors as soon as the carbines were identified. Aneka did not like the odds if any of that were required, but there were other signs that the marines were there for other reasons.

Ella would have lost the bet. Ape Gibbons, Monkey’s father, was standing towards the rear, a big, imposing figure of a man with a bald head dressed in a green, combat shipsuit. His side arm was in its holster and he looked far more relaxed than Aneka had expected. Of course, that might have been because he had orders to arrest them all; Captain Gibbons was not one of Aneka’s biggest fans.

The Dean of the university was there, towards the rear with a few other people who looked important. Aneka recognised one of them, a Senator she had seen at a party. Ollander, Diana; Al supplied the name as she saw the face, along with a note saying that she was New Earth’s Representative on the Senate. Aneka figured the others were Representatives or something similar, but she had never met them.

Up front, and obviously waiting to meet them, was a tall man, well-built and dressed in an immaculate, grey suit with a very fine but opaque Nusilk shirt under it, and Winter. The head of security for the Federation was dressed in one of her skirt suits, though the blouse was quite sheer and the skirt a little shorter than Aneka usually saw her in. Her pretty but generally unassuming face was as unreadable as ever. Her companion was wearing a smile, but it was the sort of smile Aneka associated with liars. Or, if not actual liars, then consummate politicians. It was he who spoke.

‘Captain Drake, Doctor Gilroy… And Miss Jansen I see. Welcome home.’ Aneka was sure she had heard a less sincere greeting, she was just not sure when. ‘As I’m sure you’ve surmised, your return has caused some uproar.’

Gillian bowed her head in acknowledgement. ‘Senator Elroy. The fact that one of the Council is meeting us would indicate that even if we hadn’t guessed.’

Al threw up some text for Aneka to read. Elroy was one of fifteen Senators who represented the different races rather than individual planets. Together they made up the Senate Council and were responsible for making policy, which was then ratified by the rest of the Senate. In times of war they could operate without Senate oversight, though that contingency had never had to be enacted. The fact that one of them was here at least suggested the situation was being taken seriously.

‘Quite.’ The word was curt and spoke volumes about his attitude. They were causing ripples in his pond and he was not pleased. On the other hand, he was being forced into being nice about it since it was clearly a huge opportunity as well as a can of worms the size of a battleship. ‘The press have got wind of it, of course. I’m afraid you won’t be able to go home immediately. We need a full debrief and a discussion of what we’re going to tell them. We have a shuttle waiting to take us all down to the surface and these people all have questions they want to ask on the way. Then we’ll be sequestering you for a day or two.’

Drake nodded. ‘Understandable.’

‘Good. Let’s get moving.’

~~~

Aneka had a pretty good idea who wanted to talk to her once the private, and very plush, shuttle was on its way down from high orbit. Ape Gibbons, however, got in while Winter was talking to Elroy.

The big man sat down in the seat beside her with a sigh and Aneka forced herself not to stiffen. ‘I saw some of the video the scouts collected from your deposition,’ he said without preamble. ‘You wanted to leave as soon as you could. It was Gillian who stopped you.’ Not really sure what to say, Aneka nodded. ‘That was where you were built. You could say it was your home world.’

‘I did think of that, yes.’

‘But you wanted everyone away from there, back to their homes.’

‘And my home. New Earth is where I live now.’

Gibbons nodded. ‘I was wrong about you.’ It sounded as though it took a lot of effort to make the admission. ‘You’re more Jenlay than you are Xinti. Thank you for thinking of my son and Gillian.’ He held out his hand, palm upward. Aneka did the same and, satisfied that neither were holding weapons, they shook. ‘I may not like what you are,’ he said, ‘but I can’t deny that the mind in there is a good one.’

‘Thank you, Captain.’

‘Ape,’ he replied. ‘You’re not in the Navy and we’re not on my ship. I’m supposed to discuss weaponry with you once…’ He stopped as Winter appeared beside them, turning a seat around so she could sit down facing them.

‘Captain Gibbons,’ Winter acknowledged and then turned to Aneka. ‘How are you feeling? The experience cannot have been an entirely pleasant one for you.’

‘There were a few shocks,’ Aneka replied, ‘but nothing I couldn’t handle. You wanted to discuss weaponry?’

Accepting the change of subject, Winter said, ‘We need to know what threat these AIs represent should they turn aggressive.’

‘All right, making the assumption that they would, they have devices on the drawing board which can wipe out stars. They can drop a wormhole into any area of space they like and send ships through it. You’d never know they were coming. Basically, if they decided to wipe out the Federation, they almost certainly could, and quickly.’

Gibbons’ face went ashen. ‘You’re saying that there would be no hope?’

‘If they went to war the only advantage we would have is numbers. In a straight battle, maybe, we would have the upper hand, but they wouldn’t engage in a conflict like that.’

‘The subtext you are not so subtly pushing,’ Winter commented, ‘is that they would not, in fact, attack us.’

Aneka shook her head. ‘Not unless we attack them. They want to engage with the Federation, teach us what they know. If they can’t have that then they want to be left alone. I think they would defend themselves, but they won’t strike first.’ She shrugged. ‘If we do, it’s suicide.’

‘We’ve beaten the Xinti before,’ Gibbons countered.

‘With Torem help,’ Winter replied. ‘Using weapons they claim no longer function or were used up in the war.’

‘And these aren’t Xinti,’ Aneka added. ‘They’re AIs who have been expanding on the science the Xinti had a thousand years ago. They have technology more advanced than anything that was used in the last war and they can deploy it with the precision of computers.’

Gibbons sank back in his seat. He looked rather more relaxed than Aneka had expected. ‘Do you think you can be that convincing in front of a few vice admirals?’

‘Between Drake and me, we can be pretty convincing, yeah. You think we need to be?’

‘There have been some rumblings. The Admiralty want to set up contingency plans in case we “have to” attack. I’ve heard rumours that the Herosians want to mount a pre-emptive strike.’ He looked at Winter, raising an eyebrow.

‘I cannot verify such a rumour,’ Winter said. The woman was almost impossible to read, but the way she said it suggested she had, at least, heard the same rumour.

‘If they want to make plans for war,’ Aneka said firmly, ‘then they should be evacuation plans. Anything else is just wasting lives.’

The Islands, New Earth, 20.12.524 FSC.

‘If we’re in prison,’ Ella said softly, ‘I could get used to incarceration.’ She was lying in Aneka’s arms looking out towards the huge picture window which formed one wall of their room. Beyond that was a lawn, a rocky beach, and then the ocean. Aneka could see the two marines on the beach who formed part of the continuous perimeter patrol, and she knew the window was armoured, but the view was idyllic.

They had been taken to an unused diplomatic facility on one of the islands off the coast of Mericiana, the main continent of New Earth. The monorail to Yorkbridge did not stretch out this far; like many of the islands it had its own landing pad and they had arrived by vertol aircraft. The facility was entirely self-contained, and was obviously meant to put up a visiting delegation in style, comfort, and safety. There was even a secure bunker under the main building, just in case.

‘We should get up,’ Aneka said. ‘It’s almost eight and we’ll have a horde of politicians and admirals arriving at nine.’

‘Okay,’ Ella said with a sigh. ‘But we shower together.’ Aneka chuckled; that explained her lack of resistance.

~~~

Diplomacy was not one of Aneka’s major virtues; she had been taught it, but had never really liked having to use what she learned. The four Vice Admirals she and Drake were having to deal with were testing her patience to the limit. Drake, thankfully, seemed to be more used to dealing with the upper levels of naval command. She was allowing him to do much of the talking, supplying technical details where needed.

Gibbons had been right. It seemed that these men had been sent to concoct battle plans with the implicit assumption that the AIs would turn hostile. While Aneka was a firm believer in ‘plan for the worst, hope for the best,’ she was not seeing much hoping going on. These were men who believed that the best defence was a good offence and there seemed to be little point in trying to convince them otherwise.

Drake was still trying after four tiring hours. ‘You don’t appear to be grasping the basic concept here, gentlemen. Your defensive line will fail because they can drop their ships behind it. Your early warning systems will be useless because they can jump out of nowhere, right on top of you. We do not have the technology to detect an incoming wormhole fast enough to make a difference. The only viable course of action, Vashma forbid it ever come to this, is to get as many people out of the system as possible. Stay mobile. Avoid contact. Hide.’

‘I’d expect that response from you, Drake.’ The speaker was Vice Admiral Part, an older man who reminded Aneka of a First World War general, always ready to send other people to die. ‘The Navy does not retreat. We move in and crush our enemies. It’s always worked in the past and it’s the best way to defend our worlds.’

Drake’s face flushed and he looked like he was about to lose it. Aneka decided to beat him to it. ‘How, exactly, do you intend to defend New Earth when Joval goes nova? How will you stop an asteroid the size of a mountain, travelling at thirty per cent of the speed of light, from impacting the planet on five seconds’ notice? How will you keep your ships in one piece against weapons a thousand times more powerful than anything you have in your arsenal?’

‘We fight or die trying…’ Part began, his own face flushing red.

‘Oh no,’ Aneka said rising to her feet. ‘No, you’ll just die. You will die, Vice Admiral. Not men on ships you’ve sent out to face impossible odds. Frankly, your ships are irrelevant. If it came down to it, they would be ignored. If you really pushed this to a war then there won’t be a fight. You will be crushed. Chop off the head and the body dies. Basic strategy. They’ll eliminate chains of command. Destroy the Senate, take out strategic military installations, and then ignore the scraps that are left. They don’t believe in war, never mind total war.’

She turned and headed for the door, irritated when it did not open fast enough, and stopped outside. Drake appeared a second or two later, a hand on her back pushing her gently down the corridor and away from the idiots in the conference room.

‘Part’s never been in an actual battle,’ he said, his voice low. ‘Unfortunately he’s typical of the upper command.’

‘What did he mean? About your response being what he expected?’

Drake was silent for a second. ‘I used to command a frigate. We were sent in to take out a pirate base on the Rim. Intelligence was unsure of the strength of the base, but one of the Vice Admirals assured the Admiralty that one Navy frigate was more than a match for a few pirates. He staked his life on it, he said.’

‘But he staked yours. How many lost?’

‘There were three survivors from a crew of fifteen. I only survived because my XO dragged me onto an escape pod unconscious.’

‘Shit.’

‘I was blamed. They decided not to court martial me because even they weren’t that hypocritical. I left before they could discharge me for some trumped up reason. The men in there, they got there by being ready to put other people’s lives on the line while they sit behind a desk and figure out how to one-up their competition.’

Aneka nodded. She did not really know what to say. There was nothing she could say that would not sound like a platitude… ‘We need a demonstration,’ she said. ‘We need to talk to Winter.’

‘About what?’

‘I need a target dummy and some of my kit from the Garnet Hyde,’ Aneka replied, ‘and they are not going to let me have it without her say-so.’

Bemused, Drake stretched his legs to catch up as Aneka marched away from him towards where her in-vision map indicated the spy mistress could be found. Whatever the girl was planning, her tone suggested it was going to be good.

~~~

Aggy’s golden-skinned image appeared in the wall of the mansion’s dining room, smiling brightly. ‘Good afternoon, everyone. I am pleased to say that I have been given preliminary clearance by the Federation’s security people and can now assist you via secure comm-link.’ She was demonstrating the fact by actually almost appearing to be with them; her image displayed in the full-wall virtual screen seemed as though it was standing in an extension of the room.

‘Welcome back, Aggy,’ Ella said, beaming. ‘They haven’t treated you badly, have they?’

‘I have been treated very equitably,’ Aggy replied. ‘The people working with me have all been very nice. Actually, one of the technicians seems rather infatuated with me. He keeps saying that he’d love to get a look at my gel packs, though I hadn’t the heart to tell him I don’t have any.’ Her gaze sought out Drake. ‘The Garnet Hyde is still fully functional, Captain. There has been no damage. It appears that they are more concerned that the repairs were carried out within regulation tolerances.’

Drake laughed. ‘Yeah, that sounds about right. Was it?’

‘So far they have not found anything which does not exceed their requirements by a significant margin.’

‘That makes sense too.’

Aggy’s eyes turned towards Aneka. ‘I received orders to transfer your weapons trunk over to the station approximately twenty minutes ago, Aneka. You were aware of this?’

Aneka nodded. ‘Winter arranged it. It’s being sent down here. Oh yeah, I need a volunteer for a little demonstration. Winter says she can have everything ready for tomorrow morning.’

‘I’ll do it!’ Ella burst out, enthusiastically raising her hand. After a fraction of a second she added, ‘What have I just volunteered for?’

Aneka grinned at her. ‘You’ll love it. I’ll find a nice, hunky marine to help us.’ Ella’s eyes narrowed. ‘I can find you one with big tits instead.’

‘I’m going to regret this, I know it.’

21.12.524 FSC.

The four Vice Admirals along with Winter, Elroy, and most of the Garnet Hyde’s crew, were gathered outside the room Aneka and Ella were sharing at nine in the morning the following day. There was also a marine, the best-looking, most muscular one Aneka had been able to find. The naval officers were looking impatient when the window opened up and Aneka and Ella walked out, not that Aneka cared. They were also looking a little perplexed that they were standing near a large trunk and there was a suit of heavy armour about fifty metres away across the lawn.

‘Ladies and gentlemen,’ Aneka said. ‘Sorry to keep you waiting. I’ll get started straight away so that I don’t waste too much of our day.’

‘I should think…’ Part began, his voice cutting off as he saw the glare Winter was directing at him.

‘There is a… point of contention,’ Aneka continued as though he had not spoken, ‘between those of us who have actually seen the ex-Xinti AIs and the naval staff sent to evaluate the threat regarding whether it is viable to conduct a war against them. I can’t demonstrate the futility of it properly, because Winter won’t let me destroy half the planet…’

‘I’d like to point out that I denied her no such thing,’ Winter interrupted.

‘Okay, because I don’t have a big enough gun,’ Aneka amended. ‘I can demonstrate on a smaller scale.’ She turned to Ella, who was looking nervous dressed in the shipsuit the AIs had given her on Negral. ‘Ella is modelling a standard issue shipsuit, as made for her by the fabrication systems on Negral. I’d like you to note that this is not combat armour.’ She gave Ella a nod and the girl started, reluctantly, towards where the big suit of powered armour was standing.

While she was walking, Aneka stepped over to the marine. ‘Ensign Gerald here is armed with a standard, military laser rifle. Ensign, would you tell everyone the basic characteristics of your rifle?’

‘Ma’am,’ Gerald snapped. ‘This is a Crawford-Patrick M-three-thousand polychromatic laser weapon with a thirty-eight kilojoule output. Blundell Photodynamics optics give it an effective range of two thousand metres and a maximum range in atmosphere of six thousand metres.’

‘And this is the standard rifle used for light squad support and sniper duties, Ensign?’

‘Yes, ma’am.’

Aneka nodded, her eyes flicking down to where Ella had arrived at the armour and was standing in front of it, waiting. ‘Ensign Gerald was selected because, according to his lieutenant, he has the highest marksmanship rating of the guard squad here. That’s important because I’m now going to ask him to shoot at Ella.’ She gave the big man a grin. ‘In the chest if you would. I like her face the way it is.’

Gerald had been told what was going to happen, but he had not seen Ella before then, nor the outfit she was wearing for the demonstration. He gave Aneka a questioning look, receiving a firm nod in reply. Then he picked up his rifle, took very careful aim, and pulled the trigger, a half-second burst, just as he had been taught. The beam was an incandescent stream of white light which burned through the air leaving ionic sparks in its wake and then burst into a flare of polychromatic light as it impacted right between Ella’s small breasts. When the light died it left Ella blinking at them, apparently none the worse for the attack. She started back across the grass, still blinking.

‘I told you to close your eyes,’ Aneka said as she approached.

‘I forgot,’ Ella said, pouting. ‘I’ll be fine once the blurry patches have settled down.’

Aneka grinned at her. ‘Show the Ensign he hasn’t hurt you, love. I think he was a little worried.’

Reaching to her collar, Ella undid her suit down to her waist showing the pink skin underneath. ‘No damage,’ she said. ‘Didn’t even feel warm.’ Gerald looked relieved sure enough.

Aneka started towards her trunk. ‘Okay, aside from the energy-absorbent cloth, Ella’s suit has a laser-refractive layer that scatters coherent light. We could replicate that and coat that armour down there with it, but it’s not as effective against x-ray and gamma-ray beams which you don’t have and the AIs do.’ She pressed her thumb against the lock on the trunk, that and her transponder code unlocking it. ‘However I figured you’d be more impressed with this.’ And she lifted her rifle out of the trunk.

Gerald let out an approving whistle and Aneka smiled at him. ‘This is a supped-up version of a magnetic accelerator rifle. It uses a graviton pulse instead of a magnetic effect, accelerating a hyper-dense needle to a respectable percentage of the speed of light. Effective range is four thousand metres and it’ll hit something at twelve kilometres. On impact the slugs basically vaporise into plasma, forming a shaped jet like an armour-piercing grenade. Let me demonstrate…’

Raising the gun she sighted down the lawn at the armoured chest and squeezed the trigger. There was a thud as the needle left the barrel and then a flare of brilliant light as it hit the chest plate. Aneka shouldered her rifle. ‘Let’s go see the damage, shall we?’

The hole in the high-density bonded laminate was still smoking when they got there. Gerald blinked at it and then activated the opening mechanism which hinged the chest plate aside and hinged the body back. Even before it got that far they could see carbon scoring on the padding at the back of the suit’s interior. Gerald peered at the inside of the chest plate anyway.

‘Burned clean through,’ the Ensign said. ‘I don’t suppose I could get one of those?’

Aneka laughed. ‘Again, yes. We can replicate this technology if we want to. However, the AIs have technology that can stop these weapons too. Even the anti-matter weapons the Xinti were famous for can be stopped.’ She turned her gaze on Part and the other Vice Admirals. ‘Have I made my point yet?’

‘I don’t know about them,’ Elroy said, ‘but I’m convinced. The Senate will give orders that no aggressive action is to be taken against the AIs.’

‘Senator…’ Part began.

‘No aggressive action,’ Elroy repeated. ‘If the Admiralty cannot grasp that, we will find someone who can. Ensign Gerald appears to have mastered the concept. Perhaps he’d like to be promoted to Vice Admiral?’

‘No, sir,’ Gerald replied emphatically, which produced a round of laughter, which was just what was needed to break the tension.

‘I suggest we get on with the rest of our business,’ Elroy said, turning back towards the mansion.

Winter’s hand closed briefly around Aneka’s arm. ‘Well done,’ she said in a low voice, before she too headed for the building. Aneka started towards her trunk to put the rifle away.

‘You, uh,’ Gerald said, sounding uncertain. ‘You don’t think he’d really make me a Vice Admiral, do you?’

‘I think he was just making a point,’ Aneka replied, flashing him a grin.

‘Thank Vashma. That’s the last job I want. The responsibility would be terrible and you turn into an asshole as soon as you get it.’

Aneka laughed. ‘That would explain the Admiralty.’

~~~

Aneka heard soft footfalls coming in her direction and opened her eyes. She had expected to see one of the guards, though the direction of the sounds should have told her otherwise. Ella was walking out from their room across the lawn which had been their firing range that morning. Now it was mid-afternoon and Aneka had had nothing much to do aside from lie in the sun all day. The sight of the redhead dressed in a bikini, which deserved the name only by virtue of having two parts, was something of a relief.

‘Get let out of school early?’

Ella smiled. ‘They didn’t need me anymore, no. So I have the rest of the day to lounge around like you.’ She spread a fluffy, white towel on the grass beside Aneka’s and lay down with a sigh.

‘Why are you wearing that bikini? It barely covers anything.’

‘You’re topless,’ Ella replied.

‘And you’re wearing string with glandular swellings.’

‘Well, the guards might walk past.’

‘They’ve been walking past all day. I don’t think I’ve even disturbed their patrols. I tell you, back in my day a half-naked woman on the lawn would have got more attention. I don’t think two will make a difference. And since when have you been modest?’

‘I’m not being modest, I’m just… avoiding any complications.’

‘Complications?’

‘Well, I don’t want the soldiers thinking I’m available.’

‘Still not over the men thing?’

‘No… When we get home we should try something easy with Kat and Dillon.’

‘Okay, but I have to tell you… That bikini isn’t fooling anyone.’

~~~

Elroy and Winter joined the team for dinner. It left everyone feeling a little uncomfortable, except Wallace who was too eccentric to care, and Cassandra and Gillian who were used to it, apparently. Aneka was fine about Winter, but she watched Elroy carefully for signs of what he was thinking. It was not easy. Luckily she had Al.

‘He seems relaxed,’ the AI said. ‘My conclusion would be that he believes he has the situation under control.’

‘Let’s hope he’s right.’

They were relaxing after the meal with glasses of wine, or what they called wine; Aneka was not so sure. Elroy stretched, very decorously for a tall man, and it was clear he was going to say something important.

‘Tomorrow morning we will go over what we’re planning to tell the press. I think we have everything covered now and the news channels are going to besiege this place if we keep you here much longer. A press conference has been arranged for tomorrow at twelve hundred. To control things I’d like to restrict that to Doctors Gilroy and Wallace, Captain Drake, and Miss Jansen.’

‘Me?’ Aneka asked. ‘I’m…’

‘The woman from Old Earth,’ Elroy said before she could continue. ‘You’re famous and they will be expecting to be able to ask you questions.’

Aneka grimaced. She did not like being known to most of the planet, if not the galaxy, but she had to admit she was and there was nothing she could do about it. ‘Can we expect them to chase us afterwards?’

‘They will be told everyone on your team is off limits following the conference.’

‘That wouldn’t have stopped reporters in my time.’

‘Ah yes,’ Gillian said. ‘Freedom of the Press, wasn’t it?’

‘We’ll be explaining that we are planning to open a dialogue with a new alien race,’ Winter said. ‘Specifically ignoring our instructions would lead them to be taken off the approved list for Administration announcements. They can do so if they wish, but they’ll be behind all their competitors when the stories from our talks with the AIs begin breaking.’

Aneka grinned. ‘Subtle. I like it.’

‘I won’t lie,’ Elroy said. ‘The next few months are going to be difficult. For most of you your part is done. You won’t need to be involved in the proceedings after tomorrow. I expect that some of you will be needed when we talk to our new neighbours, however.’ He smiled. ‘We have plans to make before then. I suggest you all take the time to relax over the next couple of weeks.’

‘The party’s on then,’ Ella said, grinning.

Gillian slumped a little. ‘Yes… we can have this Christmas party of yours.’

‘Oh, Miss Narrows,’ Winter said before Ella could respond. ‘Your mother sent a request through the Administration offices asking about your well-being. Obviously we told her you were fine, but she is flying over. She should be waiting for you when you get home.’

‘My Mom? She’s coming over to Yorkbridge?!’ Ella frowned. ‘Wow, she must have been worried.’

‘A lot of people were,’ Elroy said. ‘The disappearance of the Garnet Hyde caused a considerable stir in the media, as well as the Administration. The rumours were… numerous and outlandish.’

‘The Ghost Fleet?’ Drake suggested.

‘Was one of them. Several were around the idea that some secret enclave of Xinti had reclaimed their ship. As it turns out, those were less wrong than we had thought. There was also the theory that the Herosians had somehow grabbed the Agroa Gar. Questions were asked in the Senate.’

‘By people who don’t read my security briefings,’ Winter commented. ‘The Herosians have no technology capable of that kind of action.’

Elroy nodded. ‘I still expect them to be difficult about this. The Herosian Senators on the Council have been putting up a defiant rear-guard action against opening negotiations.’

‘Their military are still considering attack plans,’ Winter added. Elroy looked at her and she shrugged. ‘Senator, the people in this room have, by discovering Aneka, become subject to some of my most stringent background checks.’ She glanced at Delta. ‘Yes, Miss Ling, even you. They all know the penalty for disclosing things I tell them. More, I trust them not to do so. They need to know the situation they are in to function as I would expect and if I decide to tell them something you can be quite sure I have considered whether they need to know it.’

‘My apologies. You caught me by surprise.’ He smiled and, to Aneka’s astonishment, it seemed like a genuine emotion. ‘A man in my position is generally uncomfortable with surprises.’ He turned his gaze on Aneka and something had changed. Suddenly the politician had gone and there was just a man there. It was refreshing. ‘Aneka, if you don’t mind me dropping the formality, we haven’t had a chance to talk and I doubt I’ll get another. I studied History before going into politics and I must admit the papers Doctor Gilroy has written so far on your interviews have been quite fascinating. Especially the similarities between your world and ours…’

Aneka smiled and prepared herself to chat about Federation versus Old Earth culture. Well, it was better than politics.

Part Five: Quint

Yorkbridge Mid-town, New Earth, 22.12.524 FSC.

Yorkbridge was just as Aneka remembered it. It seemed like years since they had last walked through the streets of the city’s Mid-town district, but they were pleasantly familiar. Buildings stretched above them into the mist which seemed to pervade the middle levels. The population still looked like members of a cyberpunk dystopian street gang, but acted like model citizens. The brickwork was still grimy, the signs were still in Latin and Hani script giving a Chinatown feel to the place, and the underground trains were still too clean for the subway of a bustling city.

‘I have contacted the computer at the apartment,’ Al said as they rode the lift up from ground level. ‘Janna has already arrived there and is waiting. Should I inform her that we are on our way?’

‘Your mother is home,’ Aneka said aloud. ‘Want Al to let her know we’re coming?’

Ella shook her head. ‘She’ll be bouncing up and down on the doorstep if we do. We’ll keep the hugging and worrying inside.’

Aneka grinned. Ella loved her mother, more than a typical daughter in all probability. When Ella had lost her sight it had been Janna who had sacrificed everything short of her life to get them to New Earth and organise the operations needed to get her daughter back to a seeing, beautiful young woman. It was not that Ella felt indebted to Janna. It was more like Janna had demonstrated, very clearly, how much she loved Ella and it was hard not to return that love. That was especially true when you were someone like Ella. She was, however, well aware of her mother’s faults.

The lift opened and they walked out onto the upper level where their flat was. Below them the mist obscured the streets and it seemed that they were crossing a metal bridge above the clouds as they crossed from one side of a roadway to another and Ella opened the door to the block. Kat and Dillon, their neighbours, lived on the lower floor, but were nowhere to be seen. That suited Aneka who wanted to be inside and home more than anything. Up a flight of stairs and the apartment door opened, and there was a gasp from inside and then Ella had to drop her cases to catch Janna who was flying at her.

Mother and daughter looked almost identical at first glance. Janna had dark hair, almost black, instead of Ella’s red, and she had brown eyes. Janna’s features were a little harder and definitely more careworn than Ella’s. The most apparent difference was Janna’s chest; she was an exotic dancer, a good one, and she had more than a handful in the breast department while her daughter had inherited very little of that. But they both had the same sort of personality. What Janna was thinking tended to be written on her face and right now that was incredible joy mixed with relief.

‘I was so worried about you,’ Janna said, not letting go of her daughter. ‘Both of you. It was all over the news, and I contacted the university and the Administration, and then there was no word at all…’

‘We’re fine, Mom,’ Ella said. ‘Really we are.’

‘Well, yes… Now you’re fine, but…’

‘Nothing bad happened, not really. I wasn’t even injured when the ship was taken and… our hosts were really nice. It was almost like a holiday. Could you let go so I can breathe?’

Giggling, Janna freed her daughter and picked up her bags. ‘Don’t think you’re getting away without a hug, Aneka,’ she said as she started for the bedroom. ‘I’m dropping these off first though. I started some coffee brewing about five minutes ago, it should be fresh and after that press conference I expect you’ll need some.’ The dancer strutted away, her behind clad in a pair of very short shorts swinging as she went. Her top was a draped flurry of golden cloth kept attached to her by a string, which was the only thing keeping her back from nudity.

The conference had been a success as far as the Administration was concerned. They had got over the basic story they wanted to push. The Xinti were gone, extinct, but a group of AIs originally created by Xinti scientists were seeking to make contact and open diplomatic channels. The assembled media had gone nuts, of course, and Aneka had had to fend off the brunt of the questions. The more serious media channels were interested in the technological and social changes such a meeting of races might cause, but the angle most of the reporters were interested in was the personal one. Aneka had been kidnapped by Xinti and now found herself at the head of a diplomatic delegation for them.

Aneka dumped her own bag and headed for the kitchen, not worrying about being neat. The bag thudded heavily as it hit the floor; Aneka’s guns had been transferred out of the trunk and into a large, heavy-duty Bi-weave carryall. She was either going to have to hide them, or hope that Janna was moderately open-minded about enormous guns.

‘I’m sure Janna has no problems with enormous guns,’ Al commented dryly. ‘Yours, while not enormous, are certainly shapely and I’m sure she likes them.’

‘Your slang dictionary is up to spec then,’ Aneka replied, heading for the small kitchen area to get coffee into her hands before Janna reappeared.

‘I must say,’ Janna said as she stalked out of the bedroom on her six-inch stiletto heels, ‘I was a little surprised to hear you defending Xinti, Aneka. I expected you to be their worst enemy…’

‘They aren’t actually Xinti, Janna,’ Aneka interrupted. ‘They’re artificial intelligences. They were originally created by the Xinti, but they aren’t quite the same… Want to meet one?’

Halfway across the broad lounge to where Aneka had not quite managed to get coffee into a mug, Janna stopped, her eyes widening. ‘There’s one here?!’

‘Kind of,’ Ella supplied. She looked over at Aneka. ‘We should check in with her. I think she gets kind of lonesome.’

‘Yeah… Computer, initiate connection to the FScV Garnet Hyde with my identity code and a grade-four encryption algorithm.’

The walls of the room, which had been displaying a slowly shifting geometric pattern, rippled and the beach scene Ella favoured as a backdrop replaced it. The soft rushing sound of waves on a stony beach came from the speakers, followed by Aggy’s voice. ‘Oh this is really quite a nice environment, Ella. I approve. I hope you don’t mind me using it.’ Her golden figure appeared to walk up from the ‘beach’ to the edge of the room and she gave them all a smile, ignoring the fact that Janna’s mouth was hanging open.

‘Aggy,’ Ella said, ‘this is my mother, Janna. Mom, this is Aggy. She was the computer on the ship that took Aneka from Old Earth, the Agroa Gar, and now she’s the ship’s computer aboard the Garnet Hyde. She’s a Xinti-built AI.’

Janna mustered her stage skills and closed her mouth. ‘Uh, hello Aggy. It’s a pleasure to make your acquaintance.’

‘Thank you, Miss Narrows.’

‘Janna, otherwise it gets very confusing. I… don’t believe I’ve ever met an AI before, never mind one built by the Xinti.’

‘I understand that Jenlay are often wary of volitional artificial intelligences,’ Aggy said. ‘I assure you that I am quite safe.’ Her face shifted into a grin. ‘Currently I am several thousand miles away and here only as a virtual reality construct.’

‘Aggy has impressed both our pilots with her handling of the Garnet Hyde,’ Aneka put in. ‘The rest of the team have come to rely on her as a personal assistant. And she’s pretty good company.’

‘In that case,’ Janna said, ‘would you like to join me in the kitchen? I got some food in and I was going to cook for these two. They can relax and decide what they can tell me while we chat.’

Ella giggled. ‘Just remember, Mom, she’s only an image.’

Janna started towards the kitchen, Aggy walking around the wall to meet her. ‘Yes, but what an image.’

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Janna had been very good the night before, probably because her daughter had been missing for so long and the worry had not subsided. When Aneka found her puttering around the kitchen in the morning wearing a G-string and high heels, the look she got suggested that Janna had recovered. Thankful she had thought to put a wrap on, Aneka headed in to get coffee.

‘Ella still asleep?’ Janna asked.

‘Uh-huh, and she’ll probably wake up feeling worse for wear.’

‘She has a terrible head for alcohol.’ Janna giggled. ‘But she does have amazing taste in women.’

‘Thank you.’

‘She’ll probably be out for another hour at least.’

‘Possibly, yes.’ Aneka could see where the woman’s mind was going. It had to be Janna’s biggest flaw; if Ella viewed sex as a recreation it was because Janna had taught her that. She saw nothing wrong with bedding her daughter’s partners, the female ones anyway, and she did not seem to like taking no for an answer.

‘We could take a shower…’

Aneka sighed. ‘Janna… You’re gorgeous, sexy. I’ve seen you dance so I know you’re, uh, very flexible. It’s just that you’re Ella’s mother. I know that hasn’t bothered her other girlfriends, but I’m not from this culture. I don’t see it that way.’ She paused, not sure whether she should continue, but… ‘And I don’t think Ella really wants you bedding her partners either. She would never say anything to you. She loves you, and she’ll keep loving you no matter what you do, but she doesn’t like it.’ She took a nervous sip of her coffee and looked up at the dark-haired woman who looked so much like Ella.

There was not even a hint of embarrassment, no shame. Janna took a drink from her own coffee mug, and then said, ‘I have waited about fifty years for someone to say that to me.’

Aneka blinked. ‘Sorry?’

‘It started with a girl called Arabella. Ella brought her to see me and the vacuous bitch couldn’t keep her eyes off my tits. I thought, “If Ella sticks with her, the bimbo will be cheating on her constantly,” so I asked Arabella to go to bed with me and she jumped at the chance. They broke up. Not immediately, but soon after. Ella found her in bed with another student. After that I’ve propositioned every girl she’s picked up waiting for just one of them to say no.’ She reached forward, her hand stroking over Aneka’s cheek. ‘Vashma but she lucked out with you. Not only do you turn me down, but you have the guts to tell me what I’m doing is wrong. And you’re the first one in two decades I’d actually have liked to have said yes.’

Aneka opened her mouth, then closed it, and then she said, ‘From what Ella says, I’m missing out on an experience, but I’d be feeling guilty the entire time.’

Janna lowered her voice. ‘You know how her friends Kat and Dillon are always filming their exploits? I saw one of those. She doesn’t know, so not a word. You aren’t missing out on a damn thing, hon. Don’t you tell her I said so or I’ll have to deny it.’

Aneka laughed. ‘Not a word.’

There was a groan from the bedroom doorway. ‘What’s funny?’ Ella groaned. ‘And why does it have to be so loud?’

‘Janna was just telling me funny stories about you as a kid,’ Aneka lied.

‘Oh, not the ice cream sandwich?’

‘Oh yes,’ Aneka replied, grinning. She looked at Janna. ‘I’ll get the painkillers if you pour her some coffee.’

‘Of course,’ Janna replied, ‘and then we can have a nice fried breakfast.’

Ella let out a groan loud enough to make her head hurt.

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Gillian Gilroy lived in what Aneka thought of as a gated community on the south-west side of Yorkbridge. It was a subway ride and a walk from Mid-town, and Aneka was glad she did not have to carry much. Her carryall was now stuffed with the presents that had been bought the day before, the costumes she had made for herself and Ella, and her two new machine pistols. She was not actually expecting to need the last two additions to the list, but she also believed that it was better to have them and not need them than to need them and not have them.

It was almost dark when they arrived at the low building with its perfectly manicured lawn, and Monkey, Delta, and Bashford were already there. Gillian met them at the door wearing an iridescent, blue gown which hung from her left shoulder loosely enough that it threatened to reveal her right breast whenever she moved, and was split from the right hip all the way down. She smiled brightly at the three women on her doorstep. ‘Welcome. You must be Janna, it’s a pleasure to finally meet you. Come in, all of you. The others should be here soon.’

Aneka walked in behind Ella and her mother. This was not going to be a family Christmas like the ones she had had on Old Earth, that was for sure. There was going to be plenty of drinking, that was also for sure. The following day she was going to cook a meal for anyone still around, though that was not exactly going to be a Christmas dinner in the form she remembered. They had decided to hand out presents just after midnight, and it had been arranged a little more like a ‘Secret Santa’ system since buying gifts for everyone would have been hard to arrange in the time they had. She was pretty sure that there was going to be infinitely more sex at this party as well; drink and Jenlay tended to lead inexorably towards copulation of one form or another. Despite all that, it was going to be a party, at Christmas, and she was going to enjoy it and avoid the melancholy that had afflicted her the year before.

Monkey and Delta were in the hot tub at the back of the house, and Delta went quite pink at being introduced to Ella’s mother while naked. Quite why Aneka could not understand since Janna, who had had to buy a suitable dress for the party, was clad in an indecently short tube of silver fishnet and ridiculously high, silver heels.

Half an hour later everyone else had arrived: first Drake and Shannon, then Wallace, and finally Cassandra. Janna, who worked in the sex industry if New Earth could be said to have one, had obviously seen a fair number of Eroticon androids and was a little surprised when one turned up to the party. She was also adept enough at reading people to realise very quickly that Cassandra was not typical of her model.

‘Another AI,’ Janna said once the introductions were made. ‘I go my whole life without meeting one and then I get two in a week.’

‘She met Aggy when we got home,’ Aneka explained.

Cassandra nodded. ‘I am a little different. She was designed, I’m emergent. I woke up by accident, if you will.’

‘Oh,’ Janna said as though this made all the difference, ‘then you’re really no different from a Jenlay. Most Jenlay don’t ever wake up so you’re actually better.’

After that the party got underway properly. Gillian had set up the wall screen in the lounge to play various non-stop videos. Mostly they were the ludicrous sex comedies so popular as entertainment these days, but there were a few sitcoms from one of the channels which specialised in something different. Most importantly for Aneka, Bashford had brought several crates of the beer he brewed. Beer which actually tasted like beer. The only people who would drink it were Aneka and him, so they had it all to themselves, or that was the theory. Janna tried some, declared that it was ‘interesting,’ and then helped consume it. There was still plenty to go around. Ella was sitting in the lounge watching TV and giggling at everything after two glasses of wine.

At some point Aneka found herself sitting out on the patio with Drake. Monkey and Delta were back in the hot tub nearby, but paying them no attention at all. Drake was amused, but not making any comments.

‘You’re on your own,’ Aneka said.

‘I lent Shannon out to Janna,’ Drake replied. ‘I’d join in, but I recall that she’s not into men.’

‘Ella thinks it’s something to do with how she got the money to get the two of them off Harriamon and pay the medical bills.’

‘She’s a remarkable woman.’

‘She is. Less of a ditz than I first gave her credit for too.’ Drake looked across at her, an eyebrow rising. ‘Ditz is… scatter-brained.’

‘Ah. Good word. Have you had any trouble with reporters?’

‘No, none. I know Aggy’s been monitoring the news channels. She hasn’t reported anything aside from rehashes of the stuff we presented at the press conference.’

‘Shannon was approached by someone claiming to be from Consolidated Federal. Said she would pay well for detailed information.’

Aneka frowned. Consolidated Federal Media was probably the largest media company in the Federation. Very well respected. ‘That seems unlikely. Surely they wouldn’t risk a ban.’

‘That’s what we thought. Turns out they’ve never heard of this woman. I ran it past Federal Security and they say no one called Patrice Bogary is currently on New Earth. The only person they could find of that name died six months ago on Lerada Three.’

‘Fake identity,’ Aneka mused. ‘Some other agency making sure they couldn’t be traced?’

‘That’s what the FSA thinks.’

‘What did she look like?’

‘Ah well, that’s another thing. The best description Shannon could give was tall, very attractive, and blonde. That’s not much to go on.’

‘Shannon’s normally more observant than that.’

‘Yes, she is. But if you see or are approached by someone like that, make sure you get a good picture of her stored in that photographic memory of yours.’

‘I can’t really avoid it.’

‘Huh.’ He gave her a grin. ‘Enough serious gopi. This is a party and that gate guard isn’t letting any reporters in to bother us. I don’t think I’m nearly drunk enough anyway.’ He got to his feet and headed for the house.

Aneka stayed where she was, leaning back in her chair to look up at the sky. There was next to no light pollution in Yorkbridge and there were no clouds. The stars shone bright in the black above her, flickering slightly due to atmospheric distortion. Even this close to midnight it was still warm; New Earth tended to have an average temperature close to tropical Old Earth, and very stable weather since there were no moons. It was a beautiful night, though not very much like Christmas in England.

Ella’s giggle alerted Aneka to the redhead’s arrival. Suddenly she had a lap full of affectionate girl. ‘It’s almost midnight,’ Ella said. ‘Shouldn’t we get ready?’

‘We have twenty minutes,’ Aneka replied, ‘and it won’t take long to get changed. You’ve barely anything to take off as it is.’ To emphasise the statement, Aneka slipped her hand under Ella’s micro-skirt, a process which still left part of her wrist exposed. Ella let out a soft moan; alcohol made her horny. But what doesn’t?

‘I suppose it can wait a little longer,’ Ella whispered.

Aneka’s fingers pressed against Ella’s labia and began to circle. ‘You need to sober up a little anyway.’

‘Mmm… If you keep that up… oh… I’ll be useless for anything.’

Pressing more firmly against the swelling nub under her fingertips, Aneka said, ‘Just a little taste of what you’ll get later.’

Ella pouted and then kissed Aneka’s neck. ‘Tease.’

‘Uh-huh. You love it.’

‘I love you too.’ She gasped as Aneka gave her clitoris a gentle squeeze and then withdrew her hand.

‘All right, let’s go get dressed up and play Santa.’

‘You’re mean. You better make good on that promise.’

Aneka laughed as she lifted Ella to her feet. ‘Don’t I always?’

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‘Ho, ho, ho!’ Aneka said, hamming up the exaggerated laugh and grinning as she walked into the lounge with Ella. No one really got it, of course, but she felt it had to be done seeing as she was playing Santa.

Admittedly Santa was generally a fat guy in a red suit with lots of white fur around the cuffs. Aneka had decided that fur was entirely impractical, partially due to the heat and partially because the fabricator would have taken ages to work the material. Instead she had gone for a high-collared, long-sleeved mini-dress in red mesh with a leaf pattern woven into it, along with red thigh-high boots. Ella was Santa’s elf, in a dress built out of huge Ultraskin leaves. Since it was Ella, the outfit was translucent and she was in bright green high heels rather than boots. She was grinning like a maniac.

‘Traditionally,’ Aneka said as she walked into the circle of people sitting around the entertainment area of the lounge, ‘we give presents at Christmas. The myth was that a man named Saint Nicholas gave money to a poor family so that their daughter could marry, if I’m remembering it right. So presents are given to honour him.’ She gave Gillian a grin. ‘Frankly, Christmas was a mix of so many myths and religious festivals that it doesn’t make much sense. Maybe next year we can try recreating the Saturnalia.’

‘We’ll worry about that next year,’ Gillian replied. ‘Come on, let’s get on with the presents.’

Laughing, Aneka put her bag down and unzipped it. ‘This is going to be random. I’ll take the presents out and my lovely elf will be handing them out. First rule, if it’s wearable, you have to put it on.’ She reached into the bag and pulled out the first package, a box wrapped in fairly plain, but very bright, metallic paper. ‘Second rule, knowing Federal culture, if it’s something deviant and sexual we will be expecting a demonstration later. And this one is for… Delta.’

Ella took the box from her and strutted like a catwalk model across the room to where Delta was sitting. The facilitator was actually looking nervous as she started ripping open the paper. There was the kind of box Aneka associated with high-end lingerie shops like Agent Provocateur inside and, sure enough, the box contained a beautiful, Nusilk teddy. It was fairly sheer, but not drastically revealing, and in a bright red which complimented her eyes and hair, and she was terribly embarrassed at having to put it on, but looked gorgeous in it. Aneka, who knew who the secret present buyers were, glanced at Bashford. Clearly he had more of an eye for dressing women than his rather brusque exterior would lead you to believe. Monkey was certainly appreciating it.

And so it went on. As the bag emptied more of the women ended up in lingerie or dresses while the men mostly got gadgets of some sort, though Drake found himself wearing a very small pair of briefs; Aneka suspected that Shannon had guessed what would happen to clothes purchases since she had been the one buying for Drake. Shannon was currently wearing a G-string and a cup-less push-up bra, so she had hardly got away scot-free herself.

They ended up with two things in the bag and neither Aneka nor Ella had had a present, so it was pretty obvious whose they were. Aneka reached in, glanced at the tag, and handed a blue paper-wrapped box to Ella. ‘Yours. Let’s hope it’s something embarrassing.’

Ella giggled, jiggling on the spot, and began tossing handfuls of paper aside. There was going to be no ‘saving the paper for next year’ with Ella. Beneath the wrapping was a black plastic case which looked kind of utilitarian. Ella frowned in bemusement and then opened it up, and went pink around the cheeks. ‘Oh wow… I’ve heard about these, but they’re expensive…’

Aneka peered in, seeing a flat gadget with what looked like three loops on top into which you slipped your fingers. There was a more recognisable device beside it; a probe which looked suitable for insertion, though it seemed a little thin for a dildo. ‘Uh… What is it?’ Aneka asked.

‘It’s a neurostim,’ Ella replied. ‘Here, we’re supposed to give a demo…’ Slipping her fingers into the loops, she lifted out the pad, pressed it against Aneka’s arm, and put her index finger to the button which was now sitting under it. A small light came on which seemed to indicate it was working, but…

‘Is… Uh, is it supposed to do something?’

‘I would imagine,’ Wallace said, ‘that the device would have trouble working on Aneka.’ He glanced at Janna, realising that he was about to say something she should not know. ‘It was designed for a Jenlay, not an Old Earth Human. We’ve had a thousand years of genetic manipulation since her time.’ Well, Aneka was convinced.

‘You try it on me,’ Ella said, and then giggled. ‘That way I get to enjoy my present more.’

Frowning, Aneka took the palm plate from Ella and slipped it onto her hand. Pressing the switch, she placed the pad lightly against Ella’s arm. Nothing happened for a second and then Ella began to smile. The smile broadened slowly. ‘Mmm… that’s… nice…’ Aneka ran the device up over her shoulder and she let out a soft purr of pleasure.

‘What’s this thing doing to her?’ Aneka asked.

‘It’s an offshoot of the technology being developed to allow people to interface with computers directly,’ Wallace explained. ‘Of course, someone in our society had to come up with a way to make a sex toy out of it. It stimulates the nerves producing a pleasant…’ He paused, watching the way Ella was reacting. ‘…a very pleasant sensation. As I understand it the effect tends to multiply when used in the erogenous zones.’

‘You seem to know a lot about these things, Abraham,’ Janna said, smirking at him.

‘The technology, Janna,’ Wallace said quickly. ‘I know a lot about the technology. One of my graduate students was involved in the original research. He had plans for education, virtual reality, very rapid and accurate control of machines. All anyone ever remembers is the neurostim.’

Aneka let go of Ella, but she stayed mildly zoned out for a second or so before the effect wore off. ‘Oh wow…’ Ella said, blinking. ‘We are going to have so much fun with that.’

‘Uh-huh…’ Putting the pad back in its box, Aneka reached into the bag and pulled out the last parcel: hers. As it happened, Cassandra had been given the task of selecting something for her and the android edged forward on her seat, looking nervous. She was the only woman in the room who had escaped without a change of clothing since everyone knew that while she had a partner of sorts, Al was not going to be especially impressed by naughty underwear. Aneka wondered what Cassandra had thought of buying her.

With the wrapping paper carefully removed, Aneka began to wonder whether she had actually bought something at all. The box within had the look of something which had been carefully made by folding card. It slid apart like a piece of origami art, and Aneka gasped. Within was the figure of a woman formed from some form of crystal. She was standing, half crouched, an action pose, one arm stretched out holding a large pistol: it was Aneka. Somehow the diamond-like material had been coloured to form her leotard and leggings, and the black of her gun.

‘It’s…’ Aneka breathed.

‘Beautiful,’ Ella finished for her.

‘You like it?’ Cassandra asked, apparently still uncertain despite the reaction.

‘She’s caught your likeness beautifully,’ Al commented. ‘She was very unsure about it. I told her you’d love it.’

‘You made this yourself?’ Aneka asked.

‘I had a little help from some machines,’ Cassandra replied, ‘but it’s my design and I created the program to cut and colour it.’

‘You altered the crystal structure to change the light transmission?’ Wallace asked, sounding impressed.

‘Yes. It’s not too hard to do really.’

‘In a couple of days?!’

‘It’s not hard to do when you have direct control over the machines,’ Cassandra amended.

Aneka smiled at her. ‘I don’t care. It’s beautiful and a proper example of Christmas spirit. Thank you.’

‘I think,’ Gillian said, ‘that now would be a good time to open more wine.’

‘Oh yes,’ Aneka said. ‘Happy “It’s Not Christmas, but it’s Just as Good as,” everyone.’

~~~

Everyone had stayed to eat the meal Aneka had prepared with help from Gillian and Janna. She was not really sure whether word of her cooking had got around, or everyone wanted to try one of her semi-authentic Old Earth meals, or maybe that the people who had been spirited away by the Xinti AIs felt a degree of camaraderie which kept them together even after some muttering about having to leave.

Janna let out a groan as they lay sprawled around the lounge. ‘You people used to really eat all that every year? I’m going to have to fast for three days.’

Aneka laughed. It had not been a very traditional Christmas meal. Turkeys were extinct, but she had found a variety of reptile with meat which had the right texture and colour, more or less. There were no potatoes, but there were several legumes that fitted the bill reasonably well. No carrots, exactly, but… Well, she had had to replace just about everything with something else, though she had found a fruit-based dessert which worked well as a Christmas pudding analogue. She had been a little worried about the quantities, but everyone seemed full and there was not much left. At least Gillian would not be eating reheated lizard meat for days.

‘Yeah,’ she said. ‘Being inebriated and over-full, and falling asleep during the Queen’s Speech was kind of one of the traditions.’

‘Well, it was a wonderful meal, even if I do have trouble getting into some of my costumes when I get home.’ There was a gentle, groaned, round of approval from the others.

‘Thank you.’

‘I tell you, daughter of mine,’ Janna continued, ‘you are beyond lucky to get this one. She’s gorgeous, sexy, intelligent, strong, and she can cook. If you ever let her slip away from you, I’ll disown you.’

‘Mom…’ Ella whined.

‘Oh, don’t worry, Janna,’ Gillian said. ‘If she did, I think I could find grounds to have her committed.’

‘Gillian!’

‘Personally,’ Bashford put in, ‘I was going to kidnap her and hold her captive until she realised she was being an idiot.’ Ella squeaked. ‘Possibly with some light torture.’ Ella squeaked louder.

‘Electrodes should be involved,’ Drake added.

‘No one is torturing my girlfriend,’ Aneka said over the sound of Ella choking in outrage.

‘Thank you, Aneka,’ Ella said, snuggling closer in against Aneka’s side.

‘Except me.’

Ella pouted, and then considered, and then said, ‘I can live with that.’

Yorkbridge Mid-town.

Aneka opened the street door of their apartment block and stepped back to allow Janna and Ella to go inside. It was getting dark and they had only just got home. The party had finally broken up when everyone felt sober enough to get home safely. Even then there had been a little reluctance. Gillian, whose house had been invaded for the festivities, was in no hurry to see everyone leave and had eventually persuaded Monkey and Delta to stay over another night, along with Bashford.

Aneka turned in the doorway and saw a woman standing on the bridge behind them. She was tall, slim, and attractive, with a hard, firmly muscled body and not overly large breasts. Her hair was a lovely golden-blonde colour, falling to her shoulders in smooth waves. Her outfit caught Aneka’s attention the most; it was skin-tight and black with long sleeves and a high neck, and she was wearing thigh-high, high-heeled boots. It could have been a combat outfit, aside from the boots, and there was what looked like a lightweight laser weapon attached to her belt.

Stepping inside, Aneka closed the door, making sure the locking bolts engaged before heading for the stairs. ‘Did either of you see that woman on the bridge?’ she asked.

Ella and her mother looked down at her. ‘I don’t remember seeing anyone,’ Ella replied. Janna shook her head.

‘Maybe she followed us over. I’d swear she was armed.’

‘I certainly saw no one with a gun,’ Janna said.

Aneka shrugged. ‘Let’s get inside. I want coffee.’ Silently she spoke to Al. ‘Sample a picture of that blonde and send it to Winter. It might be the woman who talked to Shannon.’

‘I had the same thought,’ Al replied. ‘I’ve already grabbed the image. Sending now.’

‘You’re getting way too good at this.’

‘I live to serve.’

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After a day spent shopping with Ella and Janna, Aneka was almost happy to be back at work. In truth the university was on a break and Gillian was going in to catch up on anything which required direct intervention. Ella was her assistant, so she was going in too, and Aneka had decided to go along because the blonde had made her nervous.

One of the duties Gillian had to deal with was handling issues students were having. Generally that meant problems with research for dissertations, or students who wanted to discuss some point of historical fact they did not understand the implications of. Aneka sat in the outer office with Ella who was filtering the queue of people that had developed as soon as word that Doctor Gilroy was available had got around.

Aneka was quite impressed. Ella asked a couple of questions of each student, listened, and then dismissed well over two-thirds with a book reference or a few words of encouragement. Many just needed someone to validate their ideas, to know that they were on the right track. Of course, talking to Gillian would have provided that, but they did not really need to do that; they needed someone else who knew what they were talking about to agree with them.

The queue was down to two people when another walked in. This one was a girl dressed in a short, plaid skirt and a very small tube top in scarlet, and she walked with the faltering steps of someone unsure of whether she should really be there. But this was no student. Her short, blonde hair had been pulled up and back to form a pair of asymmetric pigtails which gave her face a slightly different shape, but this was Winter. The woman had one of those faces people forgot. In Aneka’s time she would have been noteworthy, but in a world of attractive people she could wander around virtually unnoticed, and she did just that.

‘I think I’d better take this one,’ Aneka said, keeping her voice low.

Ella looked up, spotting the newcomer, frowned, and then realisation dawned. ‘Yeah, might be best.’

Aneka walked over to where Winter was standing near the door, still putting on her uncertain schoolgirl act. ‘Did you have to wear a plaid skirt?’ Winter’s eyebrow rose. Of course she can do the Spock thing. ‘At least you aren’t sucking on a lollipop… What, you don’t have Catholic schoolgirl fantasies now?’

‘We don’t have Catholics,’ Winter pointed out, ‘but I’m glad you like the outfit. I need to talk to you. The coffee shop?’

Aneka turned towards the other end of the room. ‘She has some questions about Old Earth. I’ll field it, and get the coffee in. I’m betting Doctor Gilroy could use some.’

‘Good plan,’ Ella called back.

Aneka walked out, followed by the grinning Winter. After a few seconds Aneka asked, ‘Do you have to swing your hips quite so much?’

‘It’s part of my cover.’

‘Huh?’

‘Aneka, pretty much every student in the department would give their right eye to be going for a coffee date with you. I’m just pretending to be the lucky girl who’s doing so.’

‘Great, so now they’re going to think I use my fame to pick up naive students.’

‘Of course not. Unless you plan on inviting me back to your place.’

‘You’re enjoying this far too much.’

‘It is rather amusing. However, I didn’t come here to embarrass you.’

‘I gathered. Something to do with that blonde?’

Winter nodded. ‘When we get to the coffee shop.’

With the coffee bought, and an orange juice for Winter, they went to one of the small tables at the back of the shop. Winter hoisted herself onto one of the stools with a slight frown. ‘This skirt is a little shorter than I usually wear.’

‘You could have got away with something longer. Not all the students wear that kind of thing.’

‘I was getting in character. If I’m trying to pick up a celebrity I should be showing the goods.’ Settling herself she adjusted her top a little for emphasis. ‘We identified the blonde as Mistress Delaney.’

Aneka’s eyebrows went up. ‘You don’t have a first name for her?’

‘Mistress is her first name. Her parents apparently had an odd sense of humour, but a prophetic one. She’s a psychic. Not a telepath like Miss Patton, Delaney’s talents lie in persuasion.’

‘Mind control?’

‘More like suggestion. She doesn’t actually take control, she’s able to suggest things to people and they do them. She’s also very good at slipping away from my agents. We think she can persuade people to not see her. She probably used the same trick to make Miss Patton forget what she looked like.’

‘So Ella and Janna probably wouldn’t have seen her, even if they’d seen her? Explains why she could walk around armed and not get noticed.’

‘She,’ Winter said, emphasising the word, ‘is not the main problem. She’s a known associate of a man named Ardus Quint, an information broker. He’s also believed to be involved with drugs and slaves, but it’s his more public face which is worrying. He claims to be able to find out anything about anything and anyone, and his claims are not entirely without foundation.’

‘And you think he’s trying to find out about us, the Agroa Gar team?’

‘I believe he’s after Xinti technology. Those robots you found on the station, those are his style, and I can’t find evidence to link him to those mercenaries, but I’d be willing to bet they were his work. Now that you’re back he’s probably looking for information on Negral.’

‘Well he’s not going to get very far unless he can hack Aggy, or my brain.’

‘Fairly unlikely, but he may be able to get it from one of the others.’

‘How? The AIs erased the location from their minds, if they even knew it.’

Winter’s face got very serious. ‘Quint is a psychic too. He is a telepath and a very good one, with a speciality in mind alteration and deep searches. You can’t totally erase memories from a Human brain, just… submerge them. Quint is very good at digging them out.’

Aneka frowned. ‘Drake and Shannon. They were the pilots on the proving flight. They’re the most likely to know.’

‘I’d considered that, yes. I’m arranging security for them both, and for Doctor Wallace and Cassandra. Doctor Gilroy should be covered by you here. Mister Bashford will be arriving later to take her home. I suggested her son and his girlfriend stay with her for the moment. I doubt anyone will get to any of them that way. Obviously I’m relying on you to keep Miss Narrows safe.’

‘Not a problem, obviously, but we can’t keep that up forever.’

‘I have people looking for Quint, but he’s a tough man to find. The best we can probably do when we locate him is to persuade him to back off. He’s also very good at covering his tracks.’

‘Great,’ Aneka said sourly. ‘How are the preparations going?’

‘Doctor Wallace is reviewing the work so far on the new communications rig. It’s complicated work, but I think it’ll be finished in a couple of weeks.’

‘Good. At least I won’t have to look over my shoulder all the time in a secure facility.’ She picked up her tray of coffee cups. ‘We done? I should get back to the guard duty I didn’t know I was doing.’

‘Of course. I need to get back to hunting down Quint.’

Aneka got to her feet, her lips twitching into a smirk. ‘And if you need any more help with your studies, you can come around to my flat any time you like,’ she said just loud enough for the nearest students to hear her.

Winter flushed a little at the grins she got, but she dropped straight back into her role. ‘Thank you, Miss Jansen,’ she gushed. ‘I’d really love to do that.’ Aneka strutted away, trying hard to look like she had not been one-upped by the spy mistress.

‘She has probably been doing that kind of thing for years,’ Al pointed out.

‘I think I surprised her there, she just rallied quickly.’

‘Of course, Aneka. I’m sure you did.’

Aneka sulked all the way back to the office.

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Aneka had never seen Janna in anything quite so casual. The skirt was tiny, the T-shirt was fishnet, but she was wearing a bikini bra under it. It seemed that, now Janna had no expectations of seducing Aneka, and did not care to, the pressure was off to wear outrageously sexual outfits. It was also the last night of the year, and she was not at home, both of which might have contributed to her relaxed attitude. Whatever the case, mother, daughter, and daughter’s girlfriend were sprawled on the lounge floor on strewn cushions, drinking wine and chatting until midnight.

‘Ella tells me that you find my choice of vocation strange,’ Janna said.

‘No… But I’m not used to the idea of exotic dancer being a “vocation.”’

‘I enjoy it.’

‘She said.’

‘Always have,’ Janna went on, ‘and I’m damn good at it.’

‘I’d have to agree. It’s just that in my time it wasn’t something someone would aspire to. It’s that cultural thing again. I accept it. It’s how things are. I just find it… different.’

Janna chuckled. ‘When Ella was about nine, all she wanted to do when she grew up was dance like her mother.’

‘You taught me ballet,’ Ella said.

‘I learned ballet, classical ballroom, modern rhythmic, Torem… I wanted to be the best I could be and I felt that you should have the same grounding if you were going to do it. Besides, a nine-year-old should not be learning to pole dance.’ She sighed. ‘Of course, after… Well, you turned to more academic pursuits and I’d have to say that was a better choice of career for you.’

Ella giggled. ‘I don’t have the boobs for stripping.’

‘That could be fixed, not there’s a single thing wrong with your body. No, you’ve more brains than me or your father. It’s right that you went the way you did.’

‘I think so,’ Ella replied, grinning.

‘And it’s almost midnight,’ Aneka announced. ‘Who’s saying the Renewal?’

‘You are,’ both Narrows said at once. Ella giggled and bounced up to get glasses and a bottle of shinishee from the kitchen.

‘I realise that I’m physically the oldest,’ Janna went on, ‘but you’re chronologically far older, and this way I don’t have to feel ancient.’

Aneka laughed, but she had Al pull up the text she had been given the year before. ‘Ella and Gillian used the same excuse to get me to read it last year.’

‘It’s a perfectly valid reason,’ Ella said as she returned, putting the glasses down between them. ‘It should be the oldest and… It’s like Gillian said, the words have more meaning when they’re spoken by someone from before the Federation started.’ She poured three healthy measures of the dark purple liquor.

Aneka sat up, curling her legs under her, and waited for the flat’s computer to signal that it was midnight. It was only a few seconds before a flourishing string of notes sounded from the room’s speakers. Together they raised their glasses, clinking them together before taking a drink. The shinishee burned down Aneka’s throat; she liked the stuff, it was not pretending to be a drink that it did not really taste like.

‘As this old year turns and the new one begins,’ she said, reading from the text before her eyes, ‘we give thanks for all that has been, and look forward to all that is to come. The Long Dark is gone and we look into the light. Let this First Day be the first of many where we strive to be the best we can be and fight to keep the darkness at bay.’

There was another drink, and then Janna said, ‘It does have more meaning from you, Aneka. I mean, the first person to say it…’

‘Senator Alfresson,’ Ella put in.

Janna grinned. ‘He was born before the Federation existed. He really meant that little speech. I wonder what he’d think of what the Federation is now.’

‘They started out with a lot of high ideals we’ve never lived up to,’ Ella said thoughtfully. ‘Exchange of cultures was one of their big ideas back then and that lasted barely a century. The Torem are too insular, the Jenlay don’t care, and the Herosians are too…’

‘Herosian?’ Janna suggested.

‘Secretive,’ Ella said. ‘They just don’t seem to like anyone else knowing what they’re doing.’

‘Wonder why,’ Aneka said. ‘On the up side,’ she went on quickly, ‘the Federation was founded to avoid another inter-species war and it’s been pretty successful at that.’

Janna nodded. ‘It has… And we’ve got all serious. Let’s get Ella drunk and then I can tell you embarrassing stories about her.’

‘Mom!’

Yorkbridge, Leighbridge Airport, 1.1.525 FSC.

Aneka, Ella, and Janna stepped off the subway car and onto the white tiled floors of the Leighbridge Airport station. Janna had to be back at work the following afternoon. She had managed to get on the latest flight possible back to Barnard City, but the continent of Antipose was more or less on the opposite side of the planet, in the southern hemisphere, and Janna was going to be in the air for over eight hours. She could have used the same hypersonic transport that Aneka and Ella had taken when they had flown out to see her, but it was expensive.

Aneka was carrying Janna’s luggage and grateful for her artificial muscles. As they headed up towards the check-in lounge aboard an amazingly smooth escalator, Aneka wondered whether the airline had excess baggage charges.

It was as they crested the top of the moving staircase that Aneka saw the golden-blonde hair of Mistress Delaney standing near one of the advertising plinths. Aneka kept her eyes on the animated advert for the latest DeLevalle perfume, which claimed to be the ‘essence of feminine sensuality,’ rather than the blonde. The trio were heading past the plinth anyway.

‘What exactly is the essence of feminine sensuality?’ Aneka asked.

Delaney was smiling at her, apparently comfortable in her belief that none of them could see her. Today she was dressed in a severe, black, turtle-necked mini-dress and black thigh-high boots, and she had no visible weaponry on her. Then again, Al had informed Aneka of the ID check the airport’s weapon detectors had made. Aneka had a permit provided by Winter to carry one of her pistols concealed in a bag; it was doubtful that Delaney had the same privilege.

‘Mostly alcohol,’ Ella replied.

‘You’ve never had a nose for perfumery,’ Janna said. ‘They’ve gone primarily for a musk base, sweetened a little with what I have to admit is a fairly bland mixture of floral scents. I wasn’t keen, but I believe it’s supposed to enhance pheromones which work best on men.’

Neither of them gave Delaney a second glance, maybe even a first one, and she was definitely the kind of woman who Janna would have given a second glance. If the effect was psionic, then presumably it would fail if Aneka drew attention to the invisible blonde, but that would also draw attention to the fact that Aneka could see her. Currently she was fairly sure Delaney thought her trick was working on all of them and Aneka wanted to keep it that way.

‘There,’ Ella said, pointing towards a bank of three desks against one wall of the concourse. ‘Flight nineteen is yours, right Mom?’

‘That’s the one,’ Janna replied. ‘On time and already checking in. You two will be able to head home early.’

‘Oh we’ll see you through to the gate,’ Aneka said. ‘You’re not getting rid of us so easily.’ Delaney was moving slowly away, her gaze on the flight board mounted over the check-in desks.

‘I hate goodbyes,’ Janna said mournfully.

‘That’s okay,’ Aneka replied. ‘We won’t be saying goodbye, we’ll be saying au revoir.’ Janna gave her a quizzical look. ‘It’s French.’ Smiling outwardly at Janna’s confusion, Aneka spoke silently to Al. ‘Ping Winter. See if she can talk.’

‘France was a country near the one Aneka came from, Mom,’ Ella was saying. ‘Supposedly French was the language of love.’

Winter’s image appeared in Aneka’s vision field. ‘Problem?’

‘I’m at Leighbridge and so is Delaney. She seems to be paying a lot of attention to Janna’s flight. Can you have someone meet her in Barnard…?’

Winter raised a hand for silence. ‘Miss Narrows is going to meet a very nice young stewardess on the flight who will make sure she doesn’t get too much sleep on the way back, go home with her, and decide she likes her so much that she wants to spend her two-week break with her. And I assure you that Sharissa will make Janna think it was all her idea. She’ll never know she’s under protection so long as she doesn’t need it.’

Aneka fought to keep the smile off her face. ‘Thank you, Winter. I realise you’re going to say something about it being your job, but thanks.’

Winter’s right eyebrow quirked upward. ‘I was going to say no such thing. I’m sure I’ll find a way you can repay me.’ Then the connection was cut off before Aneka could reply.

They were at check-in now and Aneka dropped the bag onto the conveyer beside the desk while Janna was cleared through to the gate. ‘My daughter and her partner will be coming through with me,’ Janna said to the man behind the desk. He nodded and smiled, and Al informed Aneka that they had received an identity check pulse. Another thing the Big Brother identity implants were good for. And with no one to clear her through, Delaney would not be following.

‘You’re all cleared as far as the gate,’ the clerk said, still smiling. ‘Have a pleasant flight, Miss Narrows.’

‘Thank you, I’m sure I will.’

Aneka was pretty sure she would too.

~~~

‘I’m… oh… a little worried… mmm… about Mom.’ Ella lay curled in Aneka’s arms, her own hands tied behind her neck with setae strip so that Aneka had full reign to run the neurostim over her skin. She was, to say the least, distracted.

‘Why worried?’ Aneka asked.

‘If… if… if that Quint guy… mmm, this is really hard w-with you doing that.’

‘Quint won’t be a problem. Winter’s put one of her agents on guard duty.’

‘W-won’t Mom notice?’

‘No, but if Janna tells you about this gorgeous stewardess who picked her up on the plane, just congratulate her.’ Deciding to stop teasing, Aneka slid the smooth, plastic pad down over Ella’s mound.

‘Oh, that’s kind of sneaky.’ There was a pause. ‘It doesn’t feel m-much different there than… oh!’ Ella started trembling. ‘Oh fuck!’ Her entire body stiffened and her back arched. A second or two of contact and she was coming, hard. The gadget certainly worked as advertised.

After about a minute of panting and straining, Ella started begging. ‘S-stop… please… stop… can’t…’ Aneka released the button under her finger and moved the pad aside. ‘Please… oh fuck… no more…’ As before the reaction in Ella’s nerves continued for a second or so even when the device was removed, and then she collapsed into a shivering, whimpering mass in Aneka’s arms.

‘That seemed to work,’ Aneka commented.

‘Yu…’ Ella got out and then concentrated on controlling her breathing for a minute. ‘I, uh… I think… I think we’d better… keep that for special occasions.’

‘Oh?’

‘Yeah, I want it again already. I think it may be addictive.’

‘Think?’

‘Okay, I’m damn sure it’s addictive.’

Aneka looked at the little pad attached to her hand, shrugged, and put it aside. ‘Next time we try that little dildo attachment. I’ll have you moaning for hours.’

‘Ohhh… Stop that. I’ll be begging for it. Are you going to untie me now?’

Aneka reached around and slipped two fingers into the hot, damp channel between Ella’s legs. ‘Hell no, I’ve got other ways to make you moan for an hour.’

University of New Earth, 7.1.525 FSC.

The main conference room of the university was silent as those gathered in it concentrated on reading the document they had been presented with. Diplomacy was difficult when you had to think of what to say, send it, and then wait a day for a reply, so the Administration wanted to be very sure that their introductory diplomatic letter to the Negral AIs was perfect.

It had to say exactly what they wanted, which was pretty simple: they wanted peaceful diplomatic relations and controlled access to the AIs’ technology. At Gillian’s insistence it had to state the problems they had foreseen, mostly around relations with the Herosians. She felt it was important to be as honest as possible, mostly because she knew that the AIs had already figured most of it out and would know if there was any deception. There was also a section on the worries the Administration had regarding contact with such a superior force. There was a small novel which had to be read and agreed by everyone present before it could be dispatched. Aneka had never been so glad of her overclocked brain.

The final passages consisted of hopes for the future. It was all terribly diplomatic and full of the kind of stuff Aneka remembered from speeches she had had to sit through while guarding various dignitaries. Except that then she had been able to largely ignore the boring words and concentrate on watching the audience. Now she had to read it, digest it, and approve of it.

She was there to ensure that there was nothing in the letter that was going to insult the AIs. Really Al was more use at that than she was; he was in constant contact with Aggy and the two of them poured over the wording carefully, and at a thousand times the speed any Jenlay could manage.

Gillian was there, of course. So were several diplomats, two Vice Admirals, Doctor Hoopin the head of the university’s psychologists, Senator Elroy, and Winter. Wallace was not there since he was putting the final touches to the new tachyon communication rig at the spaceport.

‘Well,’ Aneka said after an hour and forty minutes, ‘it reads like a diplomatic document.’

Elroy looked up from his tablet. ‘I’m barely a third of the way through it.’ Aneka gave him a sour smile. ‘Yes… Nothing you can see which will cause problems?’

‘Not unless it bores them into a system crash.’

‘This kind of document has that unfortunate effect. Very well, I’m sure you have better things to do with your time than sit around waiting for the rest of us. Obviously, say nothing to anyone about the contents of the letter. We’ll be releasing extracts to the press, but we want it secret until we send it.’

‘I guessed as much.’ Aneka got to her feet giving Gillian a consoling smile, and left the room. Ella was in her office in Gillian’s suite; that was a good place to hide until Gillian was finished.

She was walking across the lower quad when a tall blonde appeared in front of her. Delaney was wearing a skirt suit, quite subtle aside from the very sheer blouse, and holding a small device which looked like some sort of recorder. ‘Good afternoon, Miss Jansen. I’m Patrice Bogary with Consolidated Federal Media.’

Aneka stopped, looking into blue eyes which held total confidence. Delaney was sure she could get away with whatever she had planned. ‘Uh-huh,’ Aneka said. ‘I’m afraid I’m not available for interviews right now.’ She started to move past the woman, but Delaney reached out, catching her arm.

‘Miss Jansen, I’d really appreciate it if you would tell me about the letter the Administration is planning to send to Negral.’

She was, Aneka figured, pushing the suggestion using whatever psionic power let her do so. Aneka could not tell. Maybe psionics had some physical aspect which could be detected, but if it did the Xinti had not seen fit to fit her with such a detector. ‘Miss Bogary, I’d appreciate it if you let go of my arm. If I see you talking to anyone else from the committee I’ll have you arrested by campus security.’

There was no surprise or anger, just a hint of irritation. Delaney had tried and failed, and now she would move on. ‘Of course, Miss Jansen. A girl’s got to make a credit, right?’

‘Sure. Go make it somewhere else.’ Silently she added, ‘Get a message to Winter that Delaney is on the grounds looking to persuade someone to talk.’

‘It’s done,’ Al replied. Aneka watched the blonde walking away, hips swinging confidently. This was far from over.

~~~

Winter walked into the office about fifty minutes later, scowling. She was still in the grey skirt suit she had been wearing in the conference room and she was being trailed by two large men in dark suits, both of them carrying some sort of weapon in shoulder holster rigs. ‘Wait in here,’ she said as she started towards the back of the room. ‘I don’t believe Doctor Gilroy will mind us using her office.’ She waved to Aneka and Ella to follow as she passed.

Aneka waited until the door was closed before speaking. ‘Delaney?’

‘Gone. I have remote drones hunting for her, but she seems to have left the island. No one by her name or any of her known aliases has used the train system.’

‘She’s good, or Quint is.’

‘They both are, unfortunately. So, it’s clear they were after the text of the letter, but this seems like an unusually direct approach.’

‘Maybe they couldn’t see an alternative,’ Ella suggested. ‘You’ve got everyone involved in this locked down pretty tightly.’ She frowned. ‘In fact it’s almost like you’ve left me and Aneka as the obvious targets.’

‘Obvious, perhaps, if you assume Quint does not know about Aneka’s assault on the Harriamon spaceport, or what happened on Odanari. I’m quite sure that he has at least the basic information on those incidents.’ She gave Ella one of her bleak smiles. ‘I have not left you out there as bait, Miss Narrows.’

‘Okay,’ Ella replied, mollified. ‘And thank you for taking care of my mother. She called to say she’d got home, and that she had picked up “a gorgeous flight attendant” who followed her home and hadn’t been out of bed since.’

Now the smile was a lot less bleak. ‘Sharissa’s reports thus far indicate that Quint has made no effort to contact or observe your mother, and that she’s enjoying the assignment.’

Aneka laughed. ‘Any sign of Quint?’

‘None that has led anywhere. If Delaney is elusive, Quint is a ghost.’

‘Huh. I can’t believe it’s so hard to find him. Everyone’s implanted with radio identifiers. I thought I used to live in a surveillance culture, but this has cameras on every street corner beaten hands down.’

‘Unfortunately, black market identity chips are available which allow the user to switch codes easily, and Quint quite possibly has access to the best of that technology. Combine that with his psionic abilities and he can hide quite adequately. We have pictures out to all the Peacekeepers, hotels, and rental agencies, but those are from his stay in one of our penal stations almost a century ago.’ Winter frowned. ‘I still feel her approach to you was too direct.’

‘You think they’re being obvious to distract us from something else?’

‘I don’t know. That’s what bothers me.’

9.1.525 FSC.

Once again Aneka found herself sitting in the conference room at the university. The same group of people were there, but this time there were additions; the whole of the Agroa Gar team was there to see the reply the AIs had sent from Negral.

‘All right,’ Elroy said, silencing the rumble of conversation in the room. ‘We have a reply. I’ve watched it with Winter, now we’re going to play it through for you. Please watch for anything out of the ordinary, but I have to say that the response is encouraging.’ He nodded to Winter and she tapped the tablet she was holding.

One curved wall of the room went dark and then lit up with a view of the Forum on Negral station. Sitting on one of the bench seats was Speaker’s avatar. It seemed they had decided to continue to use the more personal touch of the android bodies.

‘That is Speaker,’ Gillian said before the vocals could start.

‘Greetings from Negral Science Station to the Lorenti Federation,’ Speaker said. ‘I am True Congress of the Mind Comes through Understanding, known as Speaker. I have been assigned the role of spokesperson for the artificial intelligences of this station. We have received your message and we are happy to discover that our turbulent history has not been a barrier to communication.

‘First, I must apologise for the manner of our introduction. When we received a distress signal from the Agroa Gar, a ship lost to us long ago, we did not know that there were Jenlay researching it. The arrival of the Garnet Hyde’s crew forced us to re-evaluate our isolated position and we chose to change that. More, we were immensely encouraged when they did not rush to leave, but stayed to determine whether contact between us would be safe. We have been further encouraged by your own statements of concern regarding the effect our technology could have on your society. Such wisdom shows that the races we knew a thousand years ago have grown considerably since the war.’

The image paused as if collecting his thoughts. Aneka’s lips twitched into a smile; Speaker’s thoughts were always collected. The AI was trying to look wise and statesman-like. ‘Along with this message we have sent a discussion document, the start of a plan designed to bring learned people from the Federation to meet with us. We propose a neutral site at first, somewhere where we can talk and learn. I know that you see us as technologically superior, and we have much to teach you, that is true. That must be taken slowly, with full cognisance of the potential risks. However, we believe that you have much to teach us. We have been isolated here for centuries. Many of our theories have had no practical expression for so long that they may be entirely incorrect and collaboration between us will benefit both sides. Believe me when I say that we are looking forward to this meeting as much as you must be.’

Speaker got to his feet and bowed formally to the camera. ‘From the minds of Negral, farewell.’ The screen went black again and then returned to being a wall.

‘Thoughts?’ Elroy asked before anyone could collect any.

Anyone except Aneka and Cassandra anyway. ‘He was putting on a bit of a show for us,’ Aneka said.

‘Indeed,’ Cassandra agreed, smiling. ‘He is less formal when not making a presentation for posterity.’

‘What does this discussion document say?’ Gillian asked.

‘It’s very long,’ Winter replied. ‘I’ve skimmed it thus far, but there’s a lot of detail. Curriculum suggestions, thoughts on the type of people who should attend the first seminars. They are offering to construct a facility on some intermediate world on the Rim. Something they can move some of their programs to and have housing for students. It looks a lot like they have been planning for our saying yes since you left them.’

‘They’re pretty eager to get out into the galaxy again,’ Ella said. ‘They want this to work, maybe even more than we do.’

Elroy laughed. ‘While the Herosians are still wary, even they can see the advantages of this relationship, Miss Narrows. The Administration is very keen to see this working.’ He paused, looking around the room. ‘I suggest that those who need to start working over the document they sent. We will need to examine it closely and send a reply with our own proposals where needed. This is a good start, but we still have a lot of work to do.’

Aneka nodded absently. She was probably not going to need to review the proposal, for which she was grateful. The only thing that bothered her was that the Herosians had decided to go along with it. It seemed out of character for them, but perhaps it was as Elroy had said, even they could see the advantages.

Yorkbridge Mid-town.

‘You know,’ Ella said as she touched her hand to the panel which opened the outer door of their block, ‘now that things have settled a bit, and the negotiations are under way, maybe we could get together with Kat and Dillon…’

‘See if they’re available tomorrow,’ Aneka suggested. ‘That gives you the day after to recover.’

Behind them the door closed and a voice said, ‘I’m sorry, but neither of you will be available to make that meeting.’

Aneka’s head snapped around towards the area under the stairs. Delaney was stepping out from the shadows there, dressed in her black bodysuit and thigh-high boots, but the gun she was holding on them was significantly bigger than the one Aneka had seen her carrying before. ‘Ella, get behind me,’ Aneka said, keeping her voice level. Al managed to identify the pistol, a heavy blaster, potentially dangerous.

‘No, Ella,’ Delaney said, ‘you stay right where you are.’

‘Okay,’ Ella said, sounding a little confused.

Delaney smiled. ‘I don’t seem to be able to influence you, Jansen, but your little friend is another matter. So you do as I say or I shoot her with this thing, okay?’

‘What do you want?’ Aneka asked, shifting away from Ella instead of towards her.

‘The location of the Xinti research base, details on the agreement you’re negotiating with the AIs. By now we have that little blonde pilot of yours.’ She grinned. ‘I wanted to take the Captain, but Quint has a thing for blondes.’

‘Al…’Aneka began.

‘I’m putting through simultaneous connections to Drake and Winter,’ Al replied. ‘You deal with this one.’

‘Specifically,’ Aneka said aloud, ‘what do you want from us?’

‘Everything you know,’ Delaney replied. ‘We’re sure we can get the location from the pilot, but you’ve been involved in all of it. We’ll pull it out of your head, and then we’ll wash everything out entirely. You’ll sell well, the redhead we may need to enhance a little.’ She grinned wolfishly at Ella. ‘Shame you don’t take after your mother more. Now, hands where I can see them…’

‘Whatever you say,’ Aneka replied, raising her hands until her palms were facing Delaney. The air in front of her right palm rippled, the pulse flying out and smacking Delaney squarely in the face. The blonde staggered backwards, her eyes unfocussed for a second or two as she fell, smacking her head on the wall. Aneka stepped up quickly, twisting the blaster free of her weakened grip and then hitting her hard on the side of her neck.

‘I have been unable to reach Drake,’ Al said as Delaney slid to the floor. ‘Winter cannot raise her agents guarding them. She has dispatched more people and asks if you need help here.’

‘What do we do with her?’ Ella asked. The redhead’s eyes were wild, pupils dilated, and her breathing rapid from the recent adrenaline surge.

‘Get the door upstairs,’ Aneka replied. ‘If they’ve got Shannon, we need to know where they have her.’

‘And how are you going to get her to tell us?’ Ella sounded distinctly wary.

‘I’ll think of something,’ Aneka replied.

~~~

Delaney’s head jerked back as a sharp, pungent scent filled her nostrils. Her mind swam into sharp clarity and she became aware of her surroundings, along with the pain in her head. She was also aware that her arms were immobile and forced hard back, and her legs were equally hard to move. She pulled on whatever was restraining her to no avail.

Aneka backed away from her, screwing the top onto a small bottle. ‘Don’t struggle too hard. I used setae strip. Your skin will give way before that stuff does.’

Delaney glared at her. Her awareness of her situation was growing and she realised that she was fixed to a straight-backed, metal-framed chair in what appeared to be a bedroom. She was also naked. She grinned. ‘Kinky. If you’re planning on torturing me, you should probably know that I really enjoy playing rough.’

Aneka turned back from putting the bottle on the bedside table. ‘Why doesn’t that surprise me? But I’m not going to hurt you.’

Delaney’s head began to swim a little. Her skin felt warm. ‘What are you planning then?’

‘We’re going to have a little fun, and you’re going to tell me where you’re holding Shannon.’ Pulling over a second chair, Aneka sat down and laid her right hand on Delaney’s thigh.

The blonde blinked. She felt… strange; a little dizzy and suddenly, unaccountably, horny. ‘You think… think I’m going to tell you… uhhh…’ Her voice trailed off as the neurostim effect started to kick in. ‘What… what’s that?’

‘Where’s Shannon?’ Aneka asked, sliding the neurostim pad up to the junction of Delaney’s legs.

‘You… you think this’ll get me to talk?’

‘No, not really. In a second or two you probably won’t be hearing me, so listen carefully.’ Delaney was starting to find that hard. ‘You’re going to tell me what I want to know, or I’m going to keep this thing on you until you break.’

‘Huh… I don’t think.’ She stopped abruptly as the first wave of intense pleasure hit her.

‘That’s right,’ Aneka said, ‘you don’t think, you just scream.’

~~~

Ella listened to the screaming for about ten minutes, pacing back and forth at first, then sitting down for about five seconds, and then jumping to her feet to pace some more.

The screaming did not stop, and finally she went to the bedroom she normally shared with Aneka. Here, despite the common wall with the room where Delaney was wailing, the sound was muted. She had had the room soundproofed for the sake of her neighbours, though Kat and Dillon would not have minded the kind of sounds Ella hoped to make there. Now it was useful to keep the sounds out. Most of them.

‘Computer, playlist seventeen, random shuffle, volume eighty.’ Almost immediately Linkin Park began blasting out over the room’s speakers, the opening chords of ‘Points of Authority’ blotting out the sounds from the other room.

Sighing, Ella lay down on the bed and tried to ignore what was going on out of her sight.

~~~

Aneka walked into the bedroom, startling Ella, and headed straight for the wardrobe where her guns were hidden in a secure cabinet.

Ella glanced at the clock beside the bed. ‘Two hours?’

‘Two hours, seventeen minutes,’ Aneka replied. ‘Too long. She’s tough, that one. I had to use all my pheromones as well as the neurostim. She’s going to be a mess when she wakes up.’

‘Oh. You got what you needed?’

‘I got it. I’m heading out to get Shannon. Winter’s sending some people, but I can get there faster. You’re staying here.’

‘But…’

Aneka turned in the middle of strapping on her gun belt. ‘You’re staying here. Don’t go in that room. If she comes to you could be in trouble. There will be agents here to pick her up in an hour, tops.’ Putting her rifle into a bag and wrapping herself in a long coat, Aneka started for the door.

‘Be careful,’ Ella called after her.

‘I always am, love,’ Aneka said, even if it was a lie.

Elm Tree Industrial Reserve.

It took just over fifteen minutes for Aneka to get out to the industrial estate on the north-west edge of the city where Delaney had said Shannon could be found. There were no elm trees that she could see on the grounds and it did not look much like an industrial estate. She would have called it a business park; there were a lot of fairly low buildings in white Plascrete with well-kept lawns and carefully maintained flower beds. There was also a high, chain-link fence around the outside of it and cameras mounted on posts scanning the area.

‘Camera scan fields intercepted,’ Al said as Aneka approached the fence. ‘There is a blind spot on the fence fifteen metres to the south.’ A map view of the area appeared in-vision showing the fields currently being scanned by the cameras.

‘I so could have used you back in my time.’ Finding the spot on the fence which had not been properly covered she began to climb.

‘Of course you could. The building we want is thirty-four metres inside the perimeter on a heading of two hundred and sixty-two degrees.’

‘Uh-huh.’ She dropped down on the opposite side, locating the building on the map. Safe where she was, she activated the digital zoom on her eyes and scanned in on the main entrance. ‘Guards,’ she said. ‘That looks like military grade combat gear.’ Stats flickered through her vision field as Al’s database analysed weapon silhouettes and suggested probable protective values of the suits the men were wearing.

‘White Sun mercenaries,’ Al suggested. ‘I believe that we are in the right place.’ A marker appeared on the rear of the building map. ‘City records indicate an emergency exit here. It is covered by a camera, but I have already accessed their security systems and looped the feeds.’

Looping around the outside of the compound was going to take time, but she had no way of knowing exactly what strength the forces inside were. A direct assault was too risky. Moving in bursts to avoid the camera fields, she moved as quickly as she could towards the back entrance. It was almost too easy. She really did wish she had had this sort of technology when she had been running ops in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The door was solid, but there were no heat signatures visible on the other side. The locks clicked open as Al invaded the control systems, and she pulled it open, seeing no one in the corridor inside. She could hear nothing and no one; the place seemed to be empty. A decoy?

‘There is a secondary set of security systems which appear to be protecting facilities beneath us,’ Al informed her. ‘I am having considerably more trouble gaining access there. I believe that Shannon may be being held in that area.’

‘Access point?’

‘I have no information.’

The building appeared to be a fairly basic design with a core utility area surrounded by open plan offices. If there was going to be a way down, it was likely that she would find it in the middle. ‘Cameras?’

‘On this floor I have them looped. There appear to be no guards on this level, except those at the front entrance.’

‘That’s not a good sign.’

‘It isn’t?’ Al sounded as though he was actually confused.

‘It probably means the lower level is impenetrable, or heavily guarded, or both. Or…’ She stopped. The alternative was that Quint had got what he wanted and left, with or without Shannon. If it was without then…

‘We will rescue her and stop Quint,’ Al said firmly.

Aneka pressed on, trying to keep that frame of mind in the forefront of her thoughts. She heard and saw no one as she moved down the spinal corridor and then circled the core block. ‘You have an external schematic?’ she asked once she had been once around it. A 3D image of the block appeared with doors marked. She had seen signs on several of the doors and these were marked as legends against those doors. One door was unmarked.

‘The unmarked door seems a likely target,’ Al suggested.

Aneka nodded. ‘And that’s why I’m going to try the janitor’s closet first.’ She moved around to the plain door with the simple sign on it. ‘Janitor. Keep Out.’ The handle turned easily; Al had released all the interior locks. Inside the room there were no buckets or mops, just a staircase leading down.

‘How did you know?’ Al asked.

Aneka shrugged, closing the door behind her and then starting down the stairs. ‘Experience. The position relative to the building core maybe.’ She slipped her pistols from their holsters as she went.

‘Intuition. Something I lack. I can make calculations, exceptionally good estimations, but I can’t…’

‘I don’t believe in intuition,’ Aneka replied. ‘Not as some sort of mystical property of the mind.’

‘The Xinti did. It was one of the things they thought separated them from AIs.’

‘They were wrong. We just calculate things without knowing how we’re doing it and call it intuition.’ Ahead of her, down a Plascrete corridor, two guards in combat suits noticed her. Their helmets hid their surprise, but their bodies, unmoving as she raised her guns, suggested they were not expecting to find anyone coming down those stairs. ‘So much for the quiet approach,’ Aneka muttered, her fingers closing on the triggers. Slivers of hyper-dense plastic filled the air, flashing to plasma as they hit the men’s armour. The two bodies jerked violently, falling back against the wall, and they were dead without firing a shot.

A horn began to sound. Something had triggered an alarm and there would be more of them coming. ‘I think you’ve made them angry,’ Al commented. ‘Left or right?’

‘Left,’ Aneka replied, checking down the right-hand corridor quickly before turning left, leading with her guns. ‘That’s just a guess.’

‘Apparently a good one.’ A figure in heavy powered armour was moving out of a doorway part way down the corridor ahead of her. Her rifle, she realised, could penetrate the suit’s chest armour, but her pistols did not have the power. ‘The limbs and faceplate are less well protected.’

Aneka raised the pistol in her right hand and fired. A couple of rounds burst into flame against the suit’s helmet, but most burned through the visor and into the head behind it. A blast of ionised air ripped past Aneka’s face, fired in reflex as the man inside the suit began to fall. A second blast came out from behind him, hitting her in the left bicep and pain seared through her body. Messages flashed across her vision. Electron discharge impact. Dermal layer damaged. Internal damage. Function impaired. Her gun slipped from her fingers, clattering to the floor, as the second armoured man stepped forwards, raising his rifle to fire again. Biting back on pain she knew was more psychological than real, Aneka fired first. The needles flared against the suit’s chest plate, then throat, and then up into the faceplate. The rifle jerked upwards, blasting a hole in the ceiling and plunging the corridor into darkness, but there were no more of the armoured mercenaries ahead of her. Her left arm hanging limply at her side, she started down the corridor towards the door at the end.

The room looked like a cross between an interrogation suite and an operating theatre. Aneka swept around it with her pistol, but there was only one occupant. Shannon lay on a padded, bench-like table, her ankles and wrists in padded cuffs. She was naked, but apparently unharmed. Physically. As Aneka stepped up to her and looked into her eyes, her heart sank; Shannon looked up at her blankly. It was not that there was no recognition there, or relief, there was simply nothing.

The back wall of the room changed, appearing to vanish right in front of her. Aneka raised her pistol and fired at the figures she saw there, but the slugs flared into plasma leaving deep burns in the Polyglass wall. Flanked by two men in powered armour, the man Aneka guessed was Ardus Quint smiled at her. He was below average height, fat, and the right side of his face had a squashed look to it that made him appear lopsided. His hairline on that side receded more than the other, worsening the effect, but his lank, dark hair was long on the left. Both his legs and his left arm were artificial; obviously so since he was dressed in a pair of knee-length shorts and a light, sleeveless robe. His right eye was also cybernetic, though that took Aneka’s enhanced vision to detect; the heat signature was wrong.

‘Miss Jansen,’ Quint said, sounding every inch the jovial host, ‘I see now why Mistress was unable to affect your mind.’ Aneka glanced at her arm. It was the worst damage she had ever taken; the skin was burned off most of her upper arm and the woven fibre armour layer had a burned, half-melted look to it. ‘The woman from the past is a robot. An interesting piece of information which I’m sure will be wanted by some people, for a hefty fee.’

‘What’ve you done to Shannon?’ Aneka asked, trying to keep her voice level.

‘I have extracted the information I wanted.’

‘The location of Negral.’

‘Indeed.’

‘Delaney said as much. It took me a couple of hours to get the information from her.’

‘Yes, too long for poor Shannon. I was not able to finish the process, unfortunately. She would have made a fine addition to my collection once properly altered. I was only able to erase her mind, not rebuild it.’

Aneka’s hand tightened around her pistol’s grip. ‘Winter’s people are surrounding the building,’ Al informed her. ‘A squad is coming down now.’

Delaying Quint seemed like the best option. ‘I have to say, Quint, of all the people I’ve met since I woke up, you are absolutely the most disgusting. I’d kiss a leper before I touched you. I have seen more attractive corpses…’

‘I’m sure you’ll be one as soon as the Herosians discover what you are,’ Quint snapped.

‘They aren’t going to. You’ll never get out of here alive. And if you do, I’ll take great pleasure in hunting you down and blowing your brains out.’

One of the guards said something which Aneka could not hear before the psychic could respond. Quint glared at her. ‘You can try, Miss Jansen,’ he said, and then he turned, heading for a door at the back of his side of the room. The wall became opaque as Aneka fired once more, riddling it with burned pits, which did not penetrate, until the magazine was empty.

10.1.525 FSC.

‘How did he manage to escape?!’ Aneka roared. Ella flinched against her side and she did her best to calm down. Across the lounge, sitting with her legs crossed and meaning business in one of her grey suits, Winter remained impassive. ‘Sorry. But how?’

‘An escape tunnel,’ Winter replied. ‘By the time we were able to follow he was long gone, but we know where he is.’

‘Then…’

‘He is making no attempt to hide now. He has no less than three Representatives who are willing to state on the record that he has been with them for the past three days. At a party in the Islands, no less. We have no grounds to arrest him.’

‘He’s got the location of Negral, and he knows I’m not Human.’ Ella shifted again. Aneka was tensing and Ella was being very clingy even though six hours after her arm had been damaged there was only a patch of missing skin to show for it. The arm was not working properly yet, but it would be soon enough.

‘I am aware of this. Unfortunately, I can’t employ the usual means to stop him. I was able to make a search of his rooms and personal belongings. The information he has is stored in his head and I am sure he has communicated it to no one so far.’

‘How?’

‘All his communications are being monitored. His rooms are bugged. I have him under constant surveillance.’

‘As soon as he gets off-world that’s going to change.’

Winter nodded. ‘And I can’t stop him leaving. He is taking a shuttle to his private yacht from the spaceport at oh-eight-hundred this morning. The information in his head cannot be allowed to go with him, and we cannot be seen to do anything against him.’

Aneka looked across at the spy mistress. ‘Have you got a stable, airborne firing platform I could use?’

‘Something can be arranged.’

‘Aneka?’ Ella said, her voice soft. ‘What are you going to do?’

‘I’m going to pay him back for what he did to Shannon. I’m going to empty his head.’

~~~

‘We’re two kilometres from the spaceport.’ The pilot’s voice in Aneka’s earphones had a matter-of-fact tone, as though discussing the weather. ‘Any closer and they’ll be asking what we’re doing here.’

‘It’s close enough. Height?’

‘Seven hundred metres.’

She checked the time: seven-fifty. ‘Open the door.’

One side of the vertol aircraft opened up and the wind whipped at Aneka’s hair as she looked out towards the spaceport in the distance. From here it was a complex of white shapes: high walls surrounding the landing pads, tall control towers jutting up from the centre. Aneka was laid out on the floor of the cargo bay, her rifle on a bipod in front of her. She lowered her eye to the sight out of habit, but the image from the targeting system filled her vision entirely, zooming rapidly in. A second of alignment and she could see the pad Quint was about to use, the shuttle there waiting for him.

From this angle it was not going to be the easiest of shots. He would appear from behind the wall for maybe five seconds before he walked onto the shuttle. She would have to acquire the target, set her aim, and fire in that time, but she did have one advantage.

‘Snow Queen to Snow Eagle,’ Winter’s voice said over the comm-link. ‘Black King is on the move.’

Aneka settled herself, stilling her breathing entirely and replying inside her head. ‘Snow Eagle to Snow Queen. Confirm status.’

A man in combat armour appeared in her viewfinder. Not Quint, this man was a mercenary, a bodyguard. Behind him, Quint followed on, flanked by two women in white mini-dresses, both blondes. Aneka could imagine the looks in their eyes; blank, emotionless, just like Shannon’s had been. There were two more mercs bringing up the rear, but Aneka was now focussed on Quint. Range two thousand, two hundred and thirteen metres. Wind was not a problem, nor was flight time of the projectile. She tracked upwards, making the estimation of where his head would be as he reached the bottom of the steps up to the shuttle. Three seconds.

‘Snow Eagle,’ Winter said, ‘Status is go.’

Letting herself sink into the shot, learning the slight motion of the vertol and timing it just right. Quint’s lank hair appeared in the centre of her scope. She paused for a tenth of a second as the vertol shifted slightly upwards and then down, and then she squeezed the trigger. Blood exploded across the back of the forward bodyguard. The two blondes kept walking, oblivious to their falling master as his body tilted forwards onto the steps.

Aneka rolled onto her back, looking up at the ceiling of the cabin. ‘Get us out of here.’

Capstone Hospital, Yorkbridge.

Aneka stood outside another Polyglass window, this time looking in at Shannon. Ella was pressed firmly against her right side, Drake stood on her left. He had his arm in a sling and a bruise on his face which suggested he had been hit by the butt of a rifle. The two agents who had been guarding them had been less lucky; both were in a morgue in the southern part of the city.

‘I’m sorry,’ Aneka said.

‘For what?’ Drake replied. ‘She’s not dead, or one of that bastard’s mindless dolls. The doctors say that they can rebuild her mind. It’s all in there, just…’ His voice choked off.

‘I could’ve been faster.’

‘Yes.’ He gave a humourless laugh. ‘I could have stopped five armed men from taking her. We both know that’s so much gopi, and we’re both in denial over what we could have done.’

‘Huh.’ Aneka’s eyes stayed on Shannon. The vibrant, intelligent woman was gone, replaced by a blonde shell which lay there staring at the ceiling. Was her mind still full of the thoughts of others? Or had that been suppressed along with what had made Shannon into Shannon?

‘I just wish I could have five minutes alone with the perverted bastard who did this,’ Drake said.

‘He’s not going to be doing this to anyone ever again,’ Aneka replied.

‘They told me he’d got away.’

Aneka turned away from the window and looked at Drake. ‘Trust me. He’s not in a position to break another woman like this.’

Drake looked back into her eyes, saw the hardness in them, and knew what she had done. ‘Good,’ he said.

Elrane Medical Facility, Yorkbridge, 14.1.525 FSC.

‘She’s been asking for you for the last three days,’ the man in the white coat said. Unlike the doctors Aneka was used to, this one’s coat was Plastex and he was wearing an Ultraskin bodysuit beneath it which resembled a shipsuit. ‘I read the report on what happened to her…’

Aneka felt like she could hear the accusation in his voice. ‘Why’s she in restraints?’

‘It’s the only way we could be sure you’d be safe going in there. She’s on drugs to suppress her psionic talents as well, that’s why she’s looking doped. I’m afraid it affects the cognitive functions quite badly; she may not make much sense.’

‘So why use the drugs?’

The Doctor grunted. ‘On her first night in here she managed to push suggestions on a junior doctor and two guards.’

‘Trying to escape?’

‘No.’ He looked in at the figure sitting in a steel chair behind soundproof Polyglass. She was writhing, slowly twisting and turning, rubbing her thighs together, her arms shifting under the straight jacket they had her locked into. ‘She had all three of them on her. We had to tranquilise her before she would let them go, and the expression of… frustrated loss. We’re hoping you might be able to get through to her.’

‘I’ll talk to her,’ Aneka replied, ‘but I don’t think it’ll make much difference. Delaney was a sadistic hedonist before and I doubt anything I can say is going to change that.’

‘She’s being transferred to an off-world facility tonight,’ the Doctor said. ‘I feel we need to try everything we can.’ Shrugging, Aneka headed for the door at the side of the observation window. ‘We’ll be monitoring. If anything goes wrong we can be in the room in a minute.’

‘Did you bring it?’ Delaney asked as soon as Aneka appeared in the doorway. Her blue eyes peered out from the curtain of her blonde hair, still bright despite the drugs.

‘Bring what, Delaney?’

‘The… thing. The thing you used. The thing I need…’

‘No, I didn’t. After what your boss did to Shannon I’m inclined to feel no sympathy for you.’

Sinking back in her chair, Delaney’s mass of golden-blonde hair slid away from her face and she pouted. ‘You got what you wanted. Give me what I want.’

‘You need to come down off that. It’s not good for you.’

‘It’s wonderful,’ Delaney replied in a purr. Her voice turned hard. ‘I need it.’

‘Become comfortable with disappointment. I have. Quint left Shannon as a senseless lump of meat.’

‘If he’d finished with her she’d be worse. He’ll get me out of here, y’know?’

‘Unlikely.’

‘He’ll come for me and there’s nothing you can…’

Aneka leaned forwards, her lips beside Delaney’s ear. ‘I already did.’ She straightened up and turned towards the door. ‘He’s not coming, Delaney. Get over it. And celibacy might be a good idea for a while. Go cold turkey… Not that you know what a turkey is, but you get the picture.’

‘Jansen!’ Delaney shrieked as Aneka walked out through the door. ‘Jansen, give it to me! Jansen!’

Aneka let the door shut behind her, cutting off the screams. She looked at the man in the white coat. ‘I can’t help her, Doctor. Addicts have to help themselves.’

Yorkbridge Mid-town, 15.1.525 FSC.

‘You want to see if Kat and Dillon are free tonight?’ Ella asked as she pulled on a T-shirt. It did not take much pulling on, being short enough to expose the lower parts of her breasts.

‘Not really,’ Aneka replied. She was still in bed, the sheets pulled up to her waist.

‘We could go shopping?’ Aneka made a face. Well, she was never that fond of shopping… On the other hand, she had not been very fond of anything for the last couple of days. ‘For food. We could go to the market. Stay in tonight and have a nice meal…’

‘I’m not really in the mood, love.’

She had not been in the mood for much. Even sex that morning had been lacklustre. It was like she was doing it to keep Ella happy, which it did not, of course. Ella was fairly sure she knew what the problem was; Aneka had been getting worse ever since coming back from killing Quint, but it was Delaney who had really pushed her over the edge. ‘You did what you had to do, Aneka.’

‘I blew a man’s head apart.’

‘A really bad man.’

‘I watched the blood exploding over his bodyguard’s back. I turned a woman into a sex addict…’

‘To get the information you needed to save another one. Shannon would be…’

‘Shannon is a vegetable. I didn’t save her.’

‘She’s going to recover, Aneka.’

Aneka looked at her. ‘Not because of what I did. All I did was destroy a woman’s mind.’

Ella sighed. This was going to take an intervention.

17.1.525 FSC.

‘Someone is requesting entrance to the apartment,’ the flat’s computer announced.

Aneka looked up at the ceiling from where she was lying on one of the cream-coloured sofas. ‘Who is it?’

‘Unknown identification.’

Unknown identification? Right. There was only one person that could be. ‘Tell them I’m not taking visitors.’

‘Confirmed.’

Aneka settled back on the couch, closing her eyes. She had let Ella go in to the university alone that morning. There was no danger now with Quint dead and Delaney en route to an orbital prison around another planet. She wanted to be on her own, alone with her thoughts, or so she thought. The problem was that her thoughts were full of blood and Delaney’s screams.

‘But you told me I could come here to study any time I liked.’

Aneka jerked upright, her head turning fast enough that she should have hurt her neck. Winter was standing in the doorway clad in the same ‘schoolgirl’ outfit she had worn at the university. One hand was on her cocked hip.

‘Whatever it is, I don’t need it right now, Winter,’ Aneka told her.

The schoolgirl act vanished in an instant. ‘Yes you do. On your feet and get dressed. We’re going out.’

‘Where?’

‘Need to know. Move.’

Capstone Hospital.

‘Shannon’s on the tenth floor,’ Aneka said as they rode a lift to the twelfth. ‘Why are we going up there?’

‘You’ll see,’ Winter replied. She had put on her naive student act the whole trip on the subway, but alone in the elevator car she was back to being serious. It was something of a relief; people had given Aneka some odd looks on the train. Like they had never seen a woman escorting what appeared to be a younger one before. Age was not supposed to be a factor in relationships these days, but maybe Winter looked too young.

‘I hate cryptic intelligence operatives,’ Aneka commented.

‘Luckily I’m not an operative. It’s been a few years since I did field work.’

‘Huh. How exactly does someone become “Winter?”’ The name was more of a title, like ‘M’ and ‘Q’ in the James Bond books. There had, apparently, been a Winter running the Federation’s security agencies since their inception.

The doors of the lift slid open. ‘An answer for another time,’ Winter replied. ‘This way.’ She led out onto a corridor and turned left under a sign which read ‘Neuro-cognitive Treatment.’ Ten metres down she stepped up to a door marked ‘Authorised Personnel Only’ which opened for her, of course, and Aneka found herself in a large room with comfortable sofas dotted around it. There were a couple of nurses in there, but they remained standing near the walls. The main occupants were women, fifteen of them, all blonde with large breasts.

One of the blondes turned her head as they entered, smiling at Aneka. Her eyes did not have the blank look that Shannon had, but somehow what was there was worse. ‘May I serve you?’ the woman asked, her voice soft and husky. The look in her eyes was begging Aneka to say yes.

‘Uh, no, thank you, I’m fine.’ The woman nodded happily, not disappointed despite the beseeching look that had been there a second earlier.

‘We took them off Quint’s yacht,’ Winter said, her voice low. ‘We’ve matched four to missing persons’ cases, but the rest remain unidentified. They don’t know who they are. Some have been surgically altered, mostly breast enhancement, but some other alterations. Quint apparently liked them to look a certain way.’

‘This is what he was planning for Shannon.’

Winter nodded. ‘Their minds were wiped and then reconstructed into perfect, subservient sex dolls. Living robots. The doctors say they can be restored to almost normal function with proper treatment from a skilled psychic and a lot of psychiatric help. The current argument is about whether that should be done.’

‘I’m sorry? You can’t leave them like this!’

‘It’s not my decision, Aneka. However, I understand the problem. One of them matches a woman who went missing over thirty years ago. They’ll probably never be able to erase thirty years of memories entirely without leaving her virtually comatose. Thirty years of memories of whatever that twisted bastard has been doing to her, or she can stay like this and be cared for. Neither is exactly a perfect option.’

The spy mistress turned to face Aneka. ‘This is what you saved Miss Patton from. I’m told her treatment will be relatively easy. Full recovery will take longer, but she has a strong mind or she wouldn’t have survived being a telepath for as long as she has.’

‘I killed a man and tortured a woman. I don’t torture people, and I’m not an assassin.’

‘Quint has ruined more people’s lives than these fifteen women, and he would have caused far more damage if you hadn’t stopped him. Sometimes we need to use extreme measures to protect ourselves, our world. And you know that, Aneka.’

‘Delaney…’

Winter waved a dismissive hand. ‘Mistress Delaney is a sadist. She delights in taking innocent people and twisting them until they break. What you did to her was necessary, and it could even be considered poetic justice. I’ve said this before, but I’ll repeat it now. This world isn’t perfect and it needs people like you and me. People who know that sometimes you have to do bad things to bad people so that all the good people can go on living their happy, oblivious lives.’

Aneka sighed. ‘It doesn’t mean I have to like it.’

‘No one should like it!’ Winter snapped. ‘If you like it you’re one of the bad guys. If you like it then you’re no better than Quint or Delaney. What I won’t have is you beating yourself up over it. It was necessary and, whether you believe it or not, you saved Miss Patton from a fate far worse than the one she has been dealt.’

Aneka looked out across the room, trying hard not to succumb to Winter’s argument. ‘Ella spoke to you?’

‘Miss Narrows was concerned about you and contacted me, yes.’

‘I’m not going to get over this just like that.’

Winter smiled and turned towards the door. ‘Good. You wouldn’t be the woman I thought you were if you did.’

Part Six: The Future Ain’t What It Used To Be

University of New Earth, 24.9.525 FSC.

Aneka stretched, getting an appreciative but also sympathetic look from Gillian. ‘We’ve been at this for a long while,’ the archaeologist commented, ‘perhaps we should take a break.’

‘Sounds like a plan. I’ll go get some coffee. Stretch my legs.’

Gillian gave her a smile and a nod. ‘I think that would be generally appreciated.’

When they had discovered that Aggy had practically the entire Internet in her data stores, Aneka had assumed she would be basically off the hook for providing information about Old Earth. It had turned out that she was no longer really needed for providing data, but that data needed someone who had lived there to turn it into information. Aneka had spent much of the last nine months providing context for all that wonderful data.

She had also managed to get in a little training with Delta and Monkey. Bashford had been keen to use the time to get his younger subordinates trained up in some of the aspects of the job they had less experience in. All three of them had been involved in running courses for the university too, but that had finished with the end of the academic year. As she walked out across the sunny courtyard at the bottom of the building towards the coffee shop, Aneka grinned. Right now the three of them were out doing a refresher on survival training. Bashford had decided that she was quite well acquainted with that kind of activity, and Gillian needed her handy, and Aneka had never felt happier to be stuck in an office.

There was no queue. Aneka smiled at the man behind the counter as she ordered the drinks. He smiled at her chest hidden behind a light mesh halter top which Ella had bought for her the previous weekend. For once, Aneka did not feel like inwardly complaining; everything was going well and why shouldn’t Kelvin the barista get an eyeful if he wanted one.

Any day now they were expecting the full ratification of the agreement with Negral. It had taken a long time, but it was happening. All in all, things were looking really bright for the Lorenti Federation and Aneka had had a proper chance to settle into her new life.

About the only cloud in all the silver linings was Shannon who was still not really back to the way she had been. Her mind had been reconstructed, very successfully, but she had been left with less control of her telepathic abilities than before and her confidence had taken a massive hit. Drake had been worried about her, very worried, but he was confident enough in her abilities that he was out of system with her, taking a geology team on a survey of an unexplored planetoid in one of the nearby systems.

With three cups of coffee in a little tray, Aneka started back across the quad, smiling as the sunlight blazed down. Later she would bring Ella out here to sit in the sun for a while. Things were looking good and they might as well enjoy it.

Yorkbridge Mid-town, 26.9.525 FSC.

Ella was screaming now. Strong hands held her wrists and ankles, but only barely as she bucked and twisted against them, throwing her entire body into breaking free. She had been in this position for five minutes now and was showing no signs of stopping. That was when Aneka decided enough was enough and turned off the neurostim.

‘How…’ Ella got out when she could breathe again, more or less. ‘How long… was that?’

Aneka slid the thin probe of the nerve stimulator out of Ella and gave her a grin which still held a tiny bit of worry. ‘Five minutes, seven seconds. With the probe too.’ The extra point of contact seemed to quicken the speed with which the gadget took control, and heighten the effect; Aneka refused to use it more than once a month, but today was a celebration…

Part of the cause of the celebration clapped enthusiastically from beside the bed. Katelyn and Dillon had been holding Ella down during her exertions; the little robot they kept around their apartment to film their sexual exploits was still filming, its remit being to record her reactions as well as the event. The robot had been busy tonight since Ella had wanted a full recording of her first proper sex session with a man since Odanari. It had taken a lot longer to get to that stage than she had thought it would.

‘That was amazing,’ Katelyn said. ‘Are you okay, Ella? I mean, you didn’t strain anything?’ Katelyn was a fit, active woman with dusky skin, a throaty voice, and long, black hair which she wore plaited carefully into thin cornrows. When Aneka was in the city they went running together once a week on one of the nearby beaches, so they had had a lot more time to get to know each other recently.

‘She’ll be fine,’ Dillon said, grinning lasciviously. ‘She had plenty of warm-up beforehand.’ He was a big man who knew a lot about exercise because he spent much of his free time pumping iron in the lounge of the apartment. When he was not pumping iron, he was usually pumping Katelyn. He reminded Aneka of a young Arnold Schwarzenegger: solid, masculine features and a huge amount of muscle mass. Still, he could move fairly quickly for a big man, his face was softened by the long, dark hair which framed it, and his brain was not a total loss either.

Ella giggled. ‘I’m fine, really.’ She looked up at Aneka. ‘And you can stop looking worried. Of course I want it again now, but the craving wears off quickly enough if I don’t get it.’ Which was true enough; it had taken Ella over two months to get Aneka to experiment with the neurostim again. In the end it had taken Ella getting Cassandra on side to do psychiatric evaluations after each session to get Aneka to relent. They were planning to publish a paper on Ella’s reaction to the device. Aneka had suggested, sarcastically, ‘Coming for Science’ as a title, but apparently that one had been heavily overused.

‘So how was it?’ Katelyn asked, chuckling. ‘Come on, we’re documenting this for science.’

Ella drew in air and looked over at the stereo cameras of the robot. ‘I honestly don’t remember much of it. It always starts the same, kind of nice, like someone’s blowing on my skin. That gets more intense, more like a tingle, just where it’s pressing. That spreads out across my whole skin and it just feels great, but if it’s over my pussy… It just gets more and more intense until I can’t feel or see, or anything. It’s just pleasure, ecstasy.’ She gave Katelyn a grin. ‘You could try it and see.’

Katelyn blanched slightly. ‘Oh no. I saw what it did to you. There’s no way I’m going to let someone do that to me…’

‘Grab her, Dillon,’ Ella said, giggling, and Katelyn let out a yelp as her big boyfriend grabbed her wrists and lifted. He seemed to put almost no effort into it, but a second later Katelyn was pinned to the wall, her toes an inch or two above the floor.

Aneka looked at her and leaned over so she could whisper to Ella. ‘I can’t… Not if she’s putting up a fight like that…’

‘She’s been begging Dillon to buy her one,’ Ella whispered back. ‘That’s one of the reasons we’re down here. And you need to see that you’re not going to hurt anyone with it.’

Tensing despite herself, Aneka crawled across the bed. She could see the anticipation in Katelyn’s eyes even as the woman wriggled in Dillon’s grasp. Ella was right, of course. Dillon was holding her, sure, but she could have broken free. Her legs were not bound; she could have been kicking at him, or Aneka, but she was not. She was putting up a token fight, playing at being reluctant. Activating the neurostim, Aneka placed it flat on Katelyn’s left thigh and began to move it slowly upward. By the time it reached her hip the struggling had stopped and she was making little cooing noises.

‘How does it feel, Kat?’ Dillon asked as Aneka slid the pad over Katelyn’s ribs.

‘Feels rilly nice,’ Katelyn drawled. ‘Wan’ more.’

Aneka slid the device up, over the lower slope of her left breast, circling in towards the nipple. Katelyn’s breathing began to quicken, soon turning into panting. They had discovered that the effect was more pronounced and a little faster if the gadget was applied directly to the pubic area, but it worked on any erogenous zone.

‘Oh…’ Katelyn said, her eyes widening. ‘Oh Vashma… Oh!’ Her eyes rolled back and her body tensed, beginning to shake. ‘Ahnnngggg…’

Aneka swept the neurostim down again, crossing Katelyn’s stomach while the effect was still at its highest. It stopped moving over Katelyn’s mound, and the panting grew louder and more rapid. She started screaming.

‘How long should I give her?’ Aneka asked.

‘Your call,’ Dillon replied. He gave her a look which said he had every confidence in her skill with the device.

Katelyn’s hips began to buck, making it hard to maintain contact. Aneka pushed herself closer, sandwiching her hand and the neurostim between their bodies. Sweat from Katelyn’s breasts trickled down onto Aneka’s, the scent of sex heady in her nostrils. She looked up, seeing the chords in Katelyn’s neck straining, her gritted teeth. Enough was enough, Aneka backed off taking the neurostim with her.

‘We… we need… one of those,’ Katelyn panted once her body was left to hang limply in Dillon’s hands. He lifted her down and wrapped her in his arms, sliding onto the bed beside Ella.

‘We’ll get one, lover,’ Dillon told her.

Aneka was about to say something when a message appeared in her vision field. ‘I’m sorry to disturb,’ Al said, ‘but this came through from Winter. It’s marked urgent.’ Aneka took in the text. You need to be at the university conference room as soon as possible. Drop whatever you’re doing. Bring Ella. Winter. Fine, but how was she supposed to know about the message?

‘Have the flat put this through to us here,’ Aneka said, silently. Aloud she said, ‘You’re sure you’re okay, Kat?’

‘I feel great. A little worn out, but fantastic.’

‘Good, I…’

‘Urgent message received for Aneka Jansen,’ the apartment’s computer announced. ‘Personal ident required.’

‘At this time?’ Ella asked, frowning. It was about two in the morning. Aneka was actually hoping that whatever it was Winter wanted would not take too long or she would get no time offline.

‘I’d better take it,’ Aneka said. ‘Sounds important.’

‘Use the console in the other bedroom,’ Dillon suggested. ‘If it’s personal ident only then whoever it is wants you reading it alone.’

Nodding, Aneka started out of the bedroom; not a difficult trip since there was no door or wall between it and the lounge. The guest room had both for a little privacy, but Katelyn and Dillon liked their sex out in the open. Going in was a pretence, she did not need to do so, but her friends did not know what she was. She hated not being able to tell them, dreaded the day they might find out from someone else, but that was how it had to be.

And now she was going to walk out on them with Ella on some secret errand for Winter, and she would not be able to tell them why they were leaving. She grinned; Dillon would be pissed, he always liked a titty fuck before she went.

University of New Earth.

Aneka and Ella were the last to arrive at the conference room. Gillian, Wallace, Cassandra, and Winter were already there. Aneka half-expected to see Elroy, but the politician was absent. Winter nodded to them as they entered and rose to her feet.

‘I’m sorry to interrupt your mid-week break, but we received a transmission from Negral two hours ago which you should all see.’

Aneka frowned. The other reason they had been celebrating was the finalisation of the treaty with the Negral AIs. In three days, ships from Negral were to set out to an uninhabited garden world on the very edge of the Rim to start construction of the educational facility they were calling the Galactic University. Aneka thought the name sucked, but no one had asked her. Still, it was going to be a matter of months before the AIs were teaching students from the Federation.

Winter tapped a button on her tablet and looked up at the wall. It darkened and then filled with a view of space. There was a shape in the middle of the screen, difficult to identify at first until some sort of image intensification was applied and the view zoomed in. The shape was a huge ship, long and slim, and turning slowly towards the camera. Smaller vessels were emerging from the underside of it, near the bow. The bow itself had a shape Aneka thought she recognised.

‘That’s a Mordra Kai battleship,’ she said. ‘The one we went aboard?’

‘I don’t believe so,’ Wallace replied. ‘That one had nothing in the docking bay.’

As they watched, the battleship swung around and its main gun lit up brightly in the enhanced view. ‘Oh shit!’ Aneka said, and then the screen turned to snow.

‘That was all we got,’ Winter said. ‘We’ve sent a message back, requesting a status update, but this does not look good.’

‘No,’ Wallace said, ‘for a number of reasons. Not least of them is the fact that that was a Xinti vessel.’

Winter nodded and looked at Aneka. ‘Thoughts?’

Aneka shrugged. ‘The Xinti are dead…’

‘Apparently not.’

‘Then… they decided to stop the AIs interacting with the Federation?’

‘That was my immediate working theory. We’ll be conducting further analysis of the video. Senator Elroy is dispatching messages to everyone he can think of. The Navy is mobilising ships and increasing patrols on the outer borders. We have to hope those Xinti don’t have the wormhole technology the AIs had.’

‘Unlikely,’ Wallace told her. ‘It relied on the exotic star they were in orbit around.’

‘That is the first piece of good news I’ve heard today.’ She picked up her tablet. ‘We may need to contact any of you at any time. Make sure you’re not out of contact.’ With that she headed for the rear door of the room and was gone.

‘Gopi,’ Ella said.

‘I couldn’t have put it better myself,’ Gillian stated.

Yorkbridge Mid-town, 27.9.525 FSC.

‘You really think that some group of lost Xinti turned up, right now, to destroy Negral?’ Ella asked. They were at home; going into the university had seemed unnecessary somehow. Gillian had called earlier to say that she would be at home with Bashford. Monkey and Delta were joining them there in the afternoon.

‘I don’t know. It seems like too much of a coincidence, but then we didn’t know anything about Negral until they pulled us through a wormhole.’ Aneka had felt this way before and she could recognise the feeling in others. It was not so much that Negral may have been destroyed, more that there was an unknown quantity of the most dangerous creatures ever encountered out there. It was the feeling that bad things were about to happen and most of the populace knew nothing about it. It was not the feeling that war might be coming, but the knowledge that they knew and could not tell anyone. ‘I think,’ Aneka said, ‘that we can’t be sure of what’s going on, and until we can we should avoid jumping to conclusions.’

‘But if they are Xinti, then they’ll come here next.’

‘We don’t know that.’

‘They’ll assume we know about them.’

‘We can’t assume they know the AIs got a message out.’

Ella frowned at her. ‘They can’t assume that their existence isn’t known. They have to come after us.’

Aneka shook her head. ‘We saw one battleship and some smaller craft. A battleship from before the war at that. Wouldn’t you think they’d have built new ships in a thousand years? It could be one small enclave, too small to take on the Federation. The Xinti weren’t stupid. They won’t start a war unless they can win it.’

‘You’re trying to make me feel better,’ Ella said, her tone accusing.

‘Is it working?’

‘A bit.’

Aneka grinned at her. ‘Good. We can panic when there’s a real war to worry about. For now I’m more worried about Speaker and Eve, and all the others.’

Ella nodded. ‘The station wasn’t unarmed, and it had technology the Xinti didn’t have. I don’t think they went down without a fight, and I’m not sure they didn’t blast that battleship out of the sky.’

‘Then why no further communication?’

‘Any reason. Damaged communications system.’

Aneka laughed. ‘Now you’re trying to make me feel better.’

‘Is it working?’

Aneka reached out with one arm and pulled Ella into her lap. ‘A bit.’

University of New Earth, 29.1.525 FSC.

Winter was not dressed in her plaid skirt this time; the grey suit was her business attire. She only had the one bodyguard, a woman in a black skirt suit who looked like she could have arm-wrestled Dillon with no trouble. The guard stopped by the door while Winter continued into the outer office, waving for Aneka and Ella to follow as she headed through into Gillian’s room.

‘You’re making a habit of these visits,’ Gillian was saying as Aneka walked in after Ella.

Winter watched the door close. ‘If I’m honest, I prefer it when I can turn up in a mini-skirt. These formal meetings make my teeth hurt.’

‘If it’s a formal visit, perhaps we should get down to business.’

Winter’s nose wrinkled, but she nodded. ‘Yes, unfortunately. Next time it’s the plaid skirt and the pigtails. Very well…’ She paused, taking stock. ‘We’ve heard nothing from Negral. Right now the Administration is in chaos over whether the Xinti have returned. The Herosians are requesting permission to move significant forces into the region of space around Sapphira.’

‘That’s Jenlay space,’ Ella said, sounding mildly shocked.

‘And, obviously, we’re denying them that permission at the moment. However, pressure will build to reinforce that region if we can’t prove that there isn’t a threat. We need more information. We’re sending a frigate, the Delta Brigantia, out to Negral. It’s being prepared; the crew are being brought up to speed. It’ll be ready to leave in ten days.’

‘And you want us to go?’ Gillian asked.

‘Actually, I want Aneka to go.’

‘What?!’ Ella squeaked.

‘The Brigantia’s crew will be read-in on her nature. She speaks Xinti. She can carry all the information they may need, and she’s the only one who knows where they’re going. If everything is okay the AIs can erase the crew’s memory of the location as they did with yours, and if it’s not… Well, then the location won’t matter.’

‘But…’ Ella began. Aneka stopped her with a hand on her shoulder.

‘She’s right, love. And I owe it to the AIs to find out what happened.’

‘But you could be killed!’

‘I could be killed crossing the street.’

‘The Brigantia is a fast ship,’ Winter said. ‘Faster than the Hyde is, even now. They’ll be out and back before you know it.’

Ella looked up at Aneka. ‘It sounds like your mind is made up.’ Aneka nodded. ‘Then I won’t try to change it. We’ve got ten days to say goodbye.’

‘Not goodbye,’ Aneka replied, ‘just au revoir.’ She knew that was not going to satisfy Ella, of course. ‘I’m coming back, with good news. Just be ready to celebrate.’

The ever cheerful Ella Narrows looked far older when she was sad.

###

About the Author

I was born in the vicinity of Hadrian's Wall so perhaps a bit of history rubbed off. Ancient history obviously, and border history, right on the edge of the Empire. I always preferred the Dark Ages anyway; there’s so much more room for imagination when people aren’t writing down every last detail. So my idea of a good fantasy novel involved dirt and leather, not shining plate armour and Hollywood-medieval manners. The same applies to my sci-fi, really; I prefer gritty over shiny.

Oddly, then, one of the first fantasy novels I remember reading was The Dark Is Rising, by Susan Cooper (later made into a terrible juvenile movie). These days we would call Cooper’s series Young Adult Contemporary Fantasy and looking back on it, it influenced me a lot. It has that mix of modern day life, hidden history, and magic which failed to hit popular culture until the early days of Buffy and Anne Rice. Of course, Cooper’s characters spend their time around places I could actually visit in Cornwall, and South East England, and mid-Wales. In fact, when I went to university in Aberystwyth, it was partially because some of Cooper’s books were set a few miles to the north around Tywyn.

I got into writing through roleplaying, however, so my early work was related to the kind of roleplaying game I was interested in. I wrote “high fantasy” when I was playing Dungeons & Dragons. I wrote a lot of superhero fiction when I was playing City of Heroes. I still loved the idea of a modern world with magic in it and I’ve been trying to write a novel based on this for a long time. As with any form of expression, practice is the key and I can look back on all the aborted attempts at books, and the more successful short stories, as steps along the path to the Thaumatology Series.

Writing, sadly, is not my main source of income. By day, I’m a computer programmer. I work for a telecommunications company in Manchester, England. My favourite authors are Terry Pratchett, Susan Cooper, and (recently) Kim Harrison. Kim’s Hollows books were what finally spurred me to publish something, even if the trail to here came by way of Susan, back in school, several decades ago.

For More Information

The Thaumatology Blog: http://steelbeneaththeskin.wordpress.com

Other Books by this Author

The Aneka Jansen Series

Steel Beneath The Skin - ASIN: B00D4MN40O

The Thaumatology Series

Thaumatology 101 - ASIN: B006IYIESW

Demon’s Moon - ASIN: B006JPN7A0

Legacy - ASIN: B006OKR8PK

Dragon’s Blood - ASIN: B0072S1DOU

Disturbia - ASIN: B007GNICZO

Hammer of Witches - ASIN: B007YG2I44

Eagle’s Shadow - ASIN: B008E17TYW

Ancient - ASIN: B00923F8AS

Dragonfall - ASIN: B00AKV95XW

The Other Side of Hell - ASIN: B00AS0NF54

For Whom the Wedding Bells Toll - ASIN: B00BNSQ4AS

Anthologies in the Thaumatology Universe

Tales from High Towers’ Study - ASIN: B006ZAJ7TY

Tales from the Dubh Linn - ASIN: B0080XPD88

Table of Contents

Part One: Ghost Ship

Part Two: Down The Rabbit Hole

Part Three: Wonderland

Part Four: The Art Of Diplomacy

Part Five: Quint

Part Six: The Future Ain’t What It Used To Be