As soon as we rescue the people here, we will have tipped our hand to their manipulator. He’ll expect the Guild to assign its best brainware specialists to search out his identity, and with the resources that Guera can assign to such an effort, it’s only a matter of time before some clue is found. The smart thing for him to do would be to sever all his manipulative connections, abandon his communication channels, and lay low for a while. If he indeed does that, we may never find him.
She paused. I’m glad it’s Jericho’s job to make this decision and not mine. She’d passed judgment on her share of colonies, and helped determine the fate of whole populations, but Shenshido felt much more personal. Perhaps it was because the people there were native to the outworlds, citizens of the galactic human community that Guera had so painstakingly created. Not colonists who had been isolated from the rest of humanity for so long that they had no idea what was being denied them.
And they’d begged her for help. That was very personal.
I trust you to handle that challenge as you see fit. Meanwhile, let me know if there is some further service you wish from me. I assume that any such request would be accompanied by a generous offer of compensation. This is dangerous shit, Jericho.
I will remain at this location one Standard Day to receive your response.
She reread what she had written, decided it was the best she was going to be able to do, and added one more note to the bottom. Send me whatever info you’ve got on a game designer named Micah Bello.
ENCRYPT
COMPRESS
CONFIRM PRIVATE CHANNEL
DOUBLE RETINAL SCAN REQUIRED TO OPEN
SEND.
As the data packet headed out toward Harmony, she heard footsteps behind her, and turned to see Micah approaching. He was wearing one of Tully’s shirts, which hung a bit loose on him, but at least it was clean, and his face was a healthy-looking color, not the chalky hue she remembered from back in the tunnels. She didn’t know what color a Sarkassan was supposed to be, so she was guessing this was an improvement. Note to self: research Sarkassa’s Variation. Now that all the dirt and blood had been scrubbed off, he didn’t look half bad: a little taller than she was, a little thinner than Tully, and he moved with a confidence that suggested underlying fitness. It was hard to judge his age, as so many signs of that could be minimized by telomere therapy, but the youthful sparkle in his eyes suggested he hadn’t yet needed such intervention. His natural coloring, now visible, was striking, his fair skin a dramatic backdrop for the Sarkassan markings. All in all not bad, though the sight of him looking fresh and clean reminded her how much she could use a scrub herself.
She gestured toward the other pilot’s chair. “Have a seat. As you can see”—she indicated the screen—“there’s not much out there. Seemed a good place to wait for instructions, while catching our breath.”
He started to turn the chair toward him, and then stopped, clearly surprised by something. Suddenly she realized that Tully’s oversized glass phallus was still strapped into the seat. She flushed. “It was my partner’s—”
“Hey!” He put up his hands quickly. “Didn’t ask. Don’t need to know.”
“It was a gift from a glassblower on Betalon Five.” She leaned over and unclipped the safety harness to free the thing. “It was one of his favorite artifacts, so I brought it along to remind me of him.” She opened a small slideaway under the navigation display and carefully set the artwork inside. “I’m not used to traveling alone.”
He hesitated. “Can I ask what happened? Or is that too personal?”
For a long moment she didn’t answer. She’d promised herself she wouldn’t share details of Tully’s death with anyone, but this wasn’t some arrogant Guild official wanting lurid details to spice up his debriefing report. She and Micah had depended on each other while escaping Shenshido, through a maze of delusion and death, and that made for a strange sense of intimacy. “He used the wrong bodily organ for thinking,” she said at last. “He paid the price.”
“Damn. I’m sorry.”
She shrugged. “Shit happens.”
He sat down in Tully’s seat and studied the display screen; the chair whirred softly as it adjusted to his body. “Never have I been so grateful to see empty space.”
Despite herself she smiled. “Trust me, it can get boring after twenty years.”
“But you don’t stay awake for all that time, though, do you?”
“Enough of it to be bored. Deceleration starts as soon as you enter a star system, and safety regs don’t allow for stasis after that point. It can take months to reach the target and establish a viable orbit. Lots of time to kill.”
He glanced behind him. “In this small ship? How do you not go crazy? Wait, don’t tell me. Virts?”
She ignored the bait. “This is just our lander. The mothership has facilities to keep mind and body healthy. At least that’s the theory. Once we start collecting data from a colony—maybe even picking up on their communications—there’s more than enough work to focus on. We need all the information we can get to make realistic predictions about what we’ll face when we arrive.”
“How accurate are your predictions?”
“Usually pretty good. We’ve got specialized software that can look at how a station or ship was designed and extrapolate all sorts of social patterns. Sometimes we argue about the interpretation of what it tells us, but it’s usually close to the mark.”
“Do you place wagers on those arguments?” His dark eyes were sparkling. “See who comes closest to guessing right? I know I would.”
She smiled slightly. “I would never admit to such a thing.”
“And if things don’t go smoothly, despite that? Is that what all the weapons are for?”
The smile faded. With a sigh she leaned back in her seat. “You really want that story?”
“If you’re ready to tell it.”
For a moment she just stared into space. What words did you choose, to communicate such a dark truth? It wasn’t something she usually shared with outsiders, and part of her felt it should stay that way. But another part of her hungered to bring this strange wanderer into her world. She wasn’t used to living in it alone.
“The job of an outrider team is to travel to a colony that Earth abandoned, and to bring back the information needed for Guera to launch a recovery operation. Most of those journeys end in disappointment. Sometimes we find relics—the remains of houses, irrigation channels, hothouses. Sometimes there are grave sites. Sometimes there’s nothing. Alien forests and seas have swallowed up a fledgling colony, leaving us nothing to study. We may not even know what shape the colonists were when their struggle to survive finally ended. What can we do in such cases, besides move on to the next world and hope for better?”