Space Baby

Interstellar Sheriff

Book 4

Jenny Schwartz

Four years ago, Thelma Bach thought she’d lost everything when she was exiled to the Saloon Sector. She was wrong. Life on the frontier has given her the galaxy’s best—if sometimes most stubborn—husband, the cutest ever baby boy, an adolescent AI who thinks of Thelma as her mom, and the most loyal, loving and meddlesome group of family and friends anyone could wish for.

But when her son’s life is threatened, Thelma’s perfect world comes crashing down.

The galaxy will learn that there’s no force in the universe as powerful as a mother determined to save her child. The Badstars will tremble. Murderous truths will be revealed. And one special baby will find his voice. “Ma?”

Table of Contents

Prologue

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Want More?

Prologue

“It’s good she is an orphan,” the man said. “Less fuss.”

The woman, who remembered her own daughter at age seven, touched the child’s limp hand. Vengeance would be hers.

Revenge brought a cold simplicity to life. Death was its inevitable end.

The child’s doctor had excused himself. The nurses left them severely alone.

Everyone had their duty.

The man had to find a path through this nightmare to a free future. The colony planet of Mayda and the precarious stability of the Badstars depended on it.

“Medusa.” His hard voice halted her a step from the door. “Good hunting.”

Chapter 1

Thelma automatically rebalanced as her ten-month-old son, currently held on her left hip, reached eagerly toward the dancefloor.

When Silas Smith wanted something, he threw his whole being into achieving it. “Da!” he shouted demandingly.

“Wait.” Max caught one chubby fist. “Two minutes.” In his official role as an interstellar sheriff in the Saloon Sector, criminals trembled at his approach.

Not Silas. “Da. Nah!” Silas didn’t want his parents. He wanted to be out on the dancefloor with Ruth and Harry.

“Zoom,” Max said enticingly.

Silas’s big blue eyes shifted to his face.

“Zoom!” Max repeated.

Thelma laughed and jostled their son. “Zoom? Do you want to play spaceships with Daddy?”

Silas wriggled and grabbed Max’s jacket. “Da!”

Max took hold of his son and airplane-swooped him around. “Zoom. Zoo-oom.”

Enthusiastic baby giggles and crows of delight competed with the ancient classic recording of The Blue Danube Waltz.

“Ruth looks happy,” Thelma said.

“She does.” Max zoomed Silas up for a kiss.

Thelma blew a raspberry against their son’s cheek.

“Da! Blssssst.” Silas turned and mashed his nose against his mom’s face, all while spluttering spit. He had, however, been successfully distracted from his attempt to crash Ruth’s dance.

Thelma’s ballgown was to her own design: it had pockets. She extracted a tissue and wiped Silas’s face and hers. “All the AIs will be storing recordings of the dance.” She tweaked her son’s nose. “I’ll have to ask Nefertiti for a copy. Harry and Ruth look adorable together. This is the perfect father-daughter dance.”

Outsiders wouldn’t have seen it that way.

Harry and Ruth were artificial intelligences.

Harry inhabited a terrifying humanoid mech body.

Ruth had created her own adult form taking inspiration from a pseud-orchid from the urselven planet of Phascolarctos. She stored her processing unit in the bulb at the base of her body. It had a varying number of leaf feet and vine tendrils that served to move her around swiftly and elegantly. From there, the trunk of her body sprouted upward to hold three blooms. Those blooms were her faces and could angle to cover every direction. In fact, her sensors were scattered across her entire body. Her feet, bulb and trunk, plus the vines that wove around her trunk and could unwind to act as prehensile limbs, were a rose-gold shade. Her blooms flushed different colors depending on her mood. Currently, they were the vibrant pink of joy.

Ruth was the youngest of the Federation’s 1,327 AI.

Harry was one of their oldest, and their recognized magistrate.

Thelma sighed as she cuddled with her husband and son. “When Silas is Ruth’s age, we’ll be lucky if he’s potty trained. Whereas Ruth is ready to take on the galaxy.”

This evening dance was Ruth’s emancipation party. At not quite two years of age, she’d just been recognized as a legal adult.

Maturation was different for AIs than for organic sentients.

Max kissed Thelma’s temple.

Silas bopped him on the nose.

“Ruth won’t leave us yet,” Max said without wincing. He’d survived worse hits than a bop to the nose while in service as a Star Marine.

“We’re her family.” Unasked, Reynard added himself to the conversation. He was the third AI physically present. The other AIs observed and chatted from across the galaxy whilst simultaneously fulfilling their roles as everything from hospital administrators to battlecruisers.

Reynard was an independent scientist with an eight-tentacled metal body, his own spaceship—currently moored at the Zephyr spacedock—and a degree in social awkwardness. He was also a big brother to Ruth, having reluctantly accepted that neither she nor anyone else was willing to grant him the higher status of uncle that he’d tried to claim.

“Want to zoom with Uncle Reynard?” Reynard asked Silas.

Given humans’ slower maturation rate, Reynard had been cautiously granted honorary uncle status with Silas. The hope was that Reynard would grow into wisdom faster than Silas. Since everyone had their doubts, Harry watched over them.

“Da.” Silas lunged for Reynard. The tentacled AI’s clueless recklessness matched the baby’s spirit of daring.

“No!” Thelma said.

Max raised an admonitory eyebrow at Reynard. “Have you forgotten the vomit trail from last time?”

“I’ll be gentle. No loop-de-loops.”

Unnoticed, Harry had danced Ruth over to them.

“Or Silly can dance with me,” she said.

“Thank you.” Max willingly relinquished his son to her.

Metallic vines cradled the boy.

Silas cooed adoringly at her nearest bloom face.

As Ruth twirled back across the dancefloor, her guests joined her. It was a select group, although many of the Federation’s powerbrokers would have loved to have been invited.

A new AI was a rare event. A new AI raised independently by AIs, yet in a human family setting, was unique. Knowledge of Ruth’s existence was highly classified—except here on the frontier, in the Saloon Sector, where the decision as to who knew of Ruth’s existence and interacted with her was based on friendship, family ties and respect.

Reputation was everything on the frontier.

“May I have this dance?” Harry prepared to steal Thelma away from her husband.

Owen, the Zephyr Sheriff’s Office’s manager, invited Reynard to dance.

Max coughed behind his hand, almost hiding his grin, as three of the purple AI’s tentacles waved wildly in shock.

Thelma hastily turned away from her husband before their shared amusement sent her into giggles. She glanced at Harry, who winked.

“Um, yes?” Reynard let Owen guide him onto the floor.

The AI and the yprr weren’t the only unlikely couple on the floor.

The Blue Danube Waltz had segued into a current pop tune that people jived to with varying degrees of competency. Some people had no sense of rhythm.

Helen Zhou, Thelma’s space freighter captain friend, danced with Max’s deputy. As a cyborg, Carl Jafarov effortlessly stayed in time with the beat of the music. Helen chatted, while he guided them carefully wide of the flailing limbs of the urself inventor, Jerome, whose enthusiastic style apparently required no partner.

When Thelma had first met Carl, his laidback charm had failed to hide his emotional remoteness. Over three years, she’d watched him change; from warily testing his place as part of her and Max’s family to accepting that he belonged.

Family were people you chose to love and trust, as well as those you shared genetics with. They were the people you cared for and worried about.

Thelma worried about Carl and Helen as she moved automatically through the dance steps she’d practiced with Harry as part of her exercise regime.

Carl and Helen both carried complicated pasts. Cyborgs were rare in the Federation, and Helen…Thelma wondered if Helen had confided her identity to Carl. If she had, then evidently, he’d come to terms with it and their slow-developing romance had a high chance of success. But if she hadn’t told him, then their growing closeness could wreck against the reality of Carl’s dual career and its responsibilities. He combined his role as a Covert Operations agent for Galactic Justice with his position as a frontier interstellar sheriff deputy who possessed his own spaceship.

Helen was—and this was a deep secret—the daughter of a Badstars bandit and her status in the Federation illegal.

She’d confided that truth to Thelma back when the Navy had forced Thelma and Max to accompany them on an exploration voyage from the Saloon Sector to the closed wormhole in the Badstars. Helen had suspected the Navy was up to no good—and she’d been right about a rogue section within the service—and to support her warning of trouble ahead, she’d shared her connection to the bandits of the Badstars with Thelma, along with permission to tell Max and Lon. Thelma had stretched that to include Harry, as another AI friend and resident of Lon’s spaceship, the Lonesome.

Fortunately, Helen’s false identity was secure enough that Max had never felt he had to question it in an official capacity. Out in the Saloon Sector, enforcing the spirit of the law required an occasional blind spot.

Thelma smiled suddenly, worries shoved aside, as Katu, Helen’s pet dragon, leapt from Helen’s shoulder to Carl’s, and perched there to survey his surroundings.

Unperturbed by his passenger, Carl danced on. His steps slowed and he guided Helen to a swaying stop as they joined the circle of people pausing or circling to watch the central entertainment.

And, of course, that show stealer was Silas.

Thelma and Harry spun to a stop beside Max.

Ruth’s tendrils steadied Silas on the ground. This was why Silas loved dancing with her. Inside the vine supports, Silas wobbled and tottered, almost to the beat of the music.

Ruth’s love and care were obvious and touching. Her upbringing might have been unconventional, but she was proof that AIs should be created and raised as people, for no purpose other than love.

She “danced” Silas to Thelma and Max.

He was tiring and readily accepted a transfer into his dad’s arms.

Max held Silas’s tired weight easily, and wrapped an arm around Ruth’s trunk. “We’re proud of you, honey.”

Thelma nodded energetically even as tears stung her eyes. She and Max had practiced their parenting skills on Ruth before they’d had Silas, and Thelma was bursting with pride in their eldest daughter.

Streaks of crimson across the rose-pink of her flower faces revealed Ruth’s matching happiness.

The change to a polka tune broke the sentimental moment.

Owen’s uncle, Ioan, yodeled his approval and propelled his wife into energetic motion. With their three sets of appendages, yprr were well-suited to the high-stepping dance.

Everyone swung through the dance, changing partners and laughing as approximately every third person spun in the wrong direction.

Katu took flight, soaring overhead to the potted palm trees in the corner of the ballroom near the open French windows.

The Lodge had been redesigned over the last year and a half to better suit the needs of its inhabitants and visitors. The ballroom, for instance, could function as a gym with its doors opening to the pool. In recognition of Silas’s mastery of the fast crawl and his imminent ability to walk, a fence now enclosed the pool area.

Ioan remained the Lodge’s steward.

Frankly, Thelma couldn’t imagine life without him overseeing everything in this corner of the world; most importantly, its security. He’d liaised closely with Harry on that point. All the Federation’s AIs mightn’t have been able to be physically present for Ruth, but their protection was. The defenses in and around the Lodge, and in orbit around the planet of Zephyr, were second to none. The President of the Federation wasn’t as superbly protected as Ruth. Thelma knew that was true, since her father-in-law was the current president.

The polka ended and Thelma signaled not to play the next tune. “Ruth, Max and I have an emancipation gift for you.”

From behind the potted palms, Wren, one of Ioan’s many nephews, extracted a wicker hamper. The yprr security guard loathed dancing, so he’d volunteered for hamper-watching duties.

Katu flew in excited circles above his head as Wren brought the hamper to Ruth. The dragon squawked.

Guests winced at the shrill noise.

“Hush, you.” Helen plucked the dragon out of the air and wrapped a gently constraining arm around him.

Ruth opened the hamper.

A tiny bronze snout poked out.

“Oh, oh, oh!” Ruth squealed as her tendrils reached in and picked up the baby dragon. “For me?”

“She’s all yours,” Thelma said. “She’s five weeks old and needs a name.”

The dragon licked at one of Ruth’s metal vines.

“Avgi,” Ruth said. “Dawn. Thank you!” She hugged Thelma and Max enthusiastically, while keeping Avgi out of reach of Silas. The two babies would need close supervision while they learned to play safely together.

One of the appealing aspects of dragons as pets was the small reptiles’ confidence. Avgi was undaunted by her admiring audience. She yawned.

Laughter rippled through the ballroom.

The band had been in on the surprise gift giving. They struck up Dragons’ Frenzy. About half the guests attempted the dance that had been briefly, crazily popular a decade ago. The other half, the more prudent half, hastily vacated the floor.

The next morning continued the holiday vibe, although given Silas’s preference for an early start, neither Thelma nor Max slept in. Max was swimming. Thelma, awarding herself a lazy day, sat on the lawn near the terrace and talked with Helen.

Silas rolled around between them, playing with his toys. As long as he received their attention when he demanded it, he was amazingly good about entertaining himself.

Out of his sight, blocked by the low wall of the terrace, Ruth supervised Avgi’s first adventure in the great outdoors. As the young dragon’s flight muscles strengthened, she’d have to be contained for her own safety. For now, the sky was open and free above her, and she ignored it to crawl over the sundial and, since all babies shared this tendency, to try and taste everything she encountered.

Only mark the sunshine hours, the sundial read.

This weekend was all joy.

“Thanks again for tracking down a dragon and rearing her from an egg,” Thelma said to Helen.

“I was glad to.” Helen finished her coffee and stretched out on the grass, basking like a dragon in the morning sunlight.

Silas regarded her intently. He loved clambering on people.

Before he could, Helen’s personal comms unit chimed an unusual seven notes. She grabbed for it beside her even as she jackknifed up.

Her urgency had Thelma reaching for Silas’s teddy bear, Mr. Growly, and distracting him from bothering Helen.

“It’s okay,” Helen mouthed. Then, out loud. “Courtney?”

A woman’s voice, hurried and scared, sounded out of place in the tranquil morning. “Helen! Are you on the Dobbin? Private?”

“Encrypted transmission from the Dobbin.” And deliberately. “I’m on Zephyr, with Thelma Smith.”

“Oh. Oh.” It was almost a sob. “I guess…maybe that’s good. She has a baby, right?”

Thelma and Helen looked at Silas.

He bashed Thelma’s knee with Mr. Growly. “Ma.”

Helen’s comms unit picked up sound well.

“He’s with you.” Courtney inhaled sharply. “Anyone else?”

Helen glanced at Ruth. The AI’s tendrils waved every which way as Avgi darted around. “No one else is focused on us, but we’re at the Lodge.”

“Maybe it’s fate,” Courtney muttered. “Someone there will know what to do. We need help, desperately. Helen, children are dying on Mayda.”

Thelma recognized the name. It meant trouble; big, messy trouble that she and Max had hoped would wait a few decades.

The Saloon Sector was the frontier region of the Federation. Space might be infinite, but hazards and distance, especially in the absence of traversable wormholes, created natural boundaries. Beyond the Saloon Sector, outside the Federation, lay the Badstars. The region wasn’t safe, but it was navigable, and bandits had established bases there. Mayda was the best of them.

Born outside the Federation, the children of bandits weren’t recognized as citizens of the Federation. Consequently, the bandits had established their own colony in which their children could grow and choose their own lives. Some of the bandits found it appealing, and settled there, themselves. Mayda gave them a place to try other options than criminal endeavors.

The bandits had established key settlements in the two wide tropical zones that sandwiched the equatorial belt and transitioned into the large polar zones with barely a hint of an intermediate temperate climate. Although the geographically dispersed colony was low on numbers, it was growing at a stable, sustainable pace. It was also law-abiding. Bandits could be away for months, even years. They required confidence that their children were safe. Thus, those who broke Mayda’s laws were dealt with ruthlessly by those who had family or friends reliant on it as a safe haven.

Thelma and Max hoped that in a few generations, Mayda would be sufficiently stable and established in the rule of law that when the Federation inevitably extended its boundary into the Badstars, the people of Mayda could retain their society and all the rights of property ownership whilst gaining Federation citizenship.

“Are children dying anywhere other than Mayda?” Helen asked.

“Not that I’ve heard, but everyone’s talking in whispers,” Courtney said. “Vuthaj has locked things down. I think the problem is on the planet. I’m out on a run, but I’m worried about my niece and nephew.”

Helen stood and paced. “How long?”

That was when Courtney began swearing and kept going.

The bandits of the Badstars weren’t good people. It was rare for people to flee the Federation completely. Usually criminals, malcontents and adventurers found a place within its borders—even if that place was sometimes prison. However, it was important to remember that the bandits weren’t the sole inhabitants of the Badstars. Their children and grandchildren lived there, too.

Out of Courtney’s cursing, Thelma gleaned that the children on Mayda had been sick for three months before the first death occurred two months ago.

Courtney’s hesitation vanished, submerged by anger. “Darned secretive idiots. Vuthaj and the Admiralty. There’s staying safely hidden, and then, there’s being stupid. If I was willing to die, I’d tell ’em that. The Navy and surveyors sniffing around the Badstars have them unsettled. Some people even think the Federation did this to ’em.”

Thelma shook her head as sickness invaded her stomach. She locked gazes with Helen. A bad situation inevitably worsened if people panicked. Mobs weren’t known for their rationality.

Children were dying, seemingly from a mystery illness, and the bandits wanted someone to blame.

When the people of the Saloon Sector heard the news, they’d panic, too, and they’d know exactly who to blame: the bandits.

Some of Courtney’s curses echoed in Thelma’s head. Watching Silas babble to Mr. Growly, she acknowledged that the primary cause of the worry twisting in her gut was personal.

“Who knows that you’re telling me this?” Helen asked. “Have people on Mayda agreed to you telling me?”

“Captain Baagh knows. And, no.”

Thelma broke into the conversation. “What information do you have? We need to be able to convince the right people to help. What are the symptoms?”

When children were sick and dying, there was no good scenario. However, the less bad one was if the children’s condition was caused by a toxin on Mayda. A highly infectious pathogen was the worst case scenario.

In the Federation, in the event of a potentially infectious event aboard a spaceship, either Customs or the Navy, depending on which had the nearest vessel, would provide emergency assessment and assistance. The ship would then dock at the nearest settlement capable of handling the medical crisis.

The planet of Mayda couldn’t be towed to Zephyr, which was the nearest inhabited Saloon Sector planet. Help would have to be sent to them.

Cold crawled up Thelma’s spine. Would that help be sent? Not only would the Federation have to agree to provide aid to bandits, but the bandits would have to agree to accept what they’d perceive as Federation interference.

The Federation mightn’t give them a choice.

In the Federation, planets weren’t released as available for settlement until every possible test had been run on them for pathogens. The process took a minimum of a century.

Life in the Badstars didn’t permit that degree of caution.

If the children were dying from a pathogen that could spread person to person or incubate and spread on items from the Badstars, then quarantine measures had to be enacted. All the children of the Saloon Sector could be at risk as bandits mingled furtively on places like Tornado.

Thelma’s eldest brother, Joe, was on the mercenary planet of Tornado with his wife and toddler daughter, Erica.

Zephyr was relatively safe. Its governor and the overwhelming majority of the population hated the bandits and their commercially disruptive activities, and supported Customs and the Sheriff’s Office on the spacedock to ensure that the bandits understood to stay away.

Tornado was a different story.

Over the last year, Thelma’s family had migrated from the Rock Sector to the Saloon Sector to be closer to her, Max and Silas, and to pursue new opportunities. The frontier offered unlocked potential. Her parents and two youngest brothers had settled in Sheriff Cayor’s territory and taken up new asteroid mining claims and survey work.

Thelma’s oldest brother, Joe, who’d served with Max as a Star Marine, had shocked them all by forming a mercenary company. It meant that he and his wife and toddler daughter lived on Tornado, the planet for mercenary companies, weapons dealing and other private security matters in the Saloon Sector. Far from being lawless, it was highly regulated; just not necessarily according to standard Federation law. Mercenary companies could be anything from locksmiths to capable of supplying a fleet of protection vessels. Joe had gone into the bodyguard business.

“Fever, rashes, coughing, pain, fits—”

“Convulsions?” Thelma interrupted, alarmed.

Courtney panicked. “I can’t tell you enough. Worse, what if I get it wrong? You have to contact Vuthaj. He has the medical staff in a stranglehold. You need their data. Vuthaj and the Admiralty,” Admiralty was the bandits’ mocking term for the leadership of the loose coalition of bandit captains that ran the Badstars, “they want to keep it secret. Other bandit captains, they’re saying the same. The first are scared. Scared of being overrun. Scared of the unknown. But some of the captains, they’re plain buzzards. Don’t want their ‘business’ disrupted.”

Profit above people happened in the Federation, too.

Courtney was nearly crying from a mix of frustration, fear and helplessness. “It’s because Captain Baagh is better than that, a good man, that he let me call you, Helen. But you can’t tell anyone it was me. You know I have family on Mayda.” Unspoken was that Courtney’s family could be hurt to punish her.

“We won’t mention your name,” Helen promised.

The call ended.

Captain Baagh was a cantankerous old criminal. He ran dark star routes between the Reclamation and Saloon Sectors and the Badstars. Max and Customs ignored his activities because his ship, the Elbow Room, smuggled essentials like medical and agricultural supplies to the bandits and refused to carry weapons or other tools of violence. Which wasn’t to say that the Elbow Room couldn’t defend itself.

“What’s Courtney’s position on the Elbow Room?” The question didn’t matter, but Thelma was still getting her head around the bombshell.

“Courtney Dushku. She’s an engineer.” Helen dropped her head forward, running her hand over her neck and through her hair. “For Baagh to let her call me, he thinks this is huge. Maybe the end of Mayda. I can’t…I didn’t have any suspicion of this, Thelma.”

“I know.”

They watched Silas suck on his toes, happily oblivious to their worries. Where had his socks gone?

Helen edged away. “I would never put Silas or any child at risk.”

“I know.”

Helen’s frown didn’t lift despite the certainty Thelma infused in her tone. It was understandable. For Thelma, the citizens of Mayda were strangers. Helen had friends among them. “I went to kindergarten with Courtney. Before Mom shipped me off Mayda.” Her mouth clamped shut.

Helen Zhou had an unconventional background. She’d been born on Mayda, even if her citizenship papers proclaimed her origins as the industrial planet of Sinjiles, and the infamous high-rise slums of Shoreditch. But whatever her past—and her situational awareness and fighting abilities, not to mention her fraught acquaintanceship with Aubree Tennyson, suggested she’d had an adventurous time in her early twenties—for the last four years Helen had contented herself with slowly traversing the Saloon Sector as captain and sole crew for her trampship, Dobbin.

That wasn’t to say that for the first couple of years the Dobbin hadn’t taken a few smuggling jaunts into the Badstars. Like Captain Baagh, Helen had provided the settlement on Mayda with essentials they couldn’t produce for themselves.

However, as her friendship with Thelma had strengthened, Helen had ceased to take those trading routes.

“Five months…I’ll kill her.”

Thelma blinked at the vicious vow. “Who?”

“Mom.”

“Oh,” Thelma said cautiously as she gathered Silas up for a cuddle. By his low-grade grizzling, he needed a diaper change. She put it off. Mention of Helen’s mom tended to take precedence, whatever the circumstances.

Helen wasn’t simply the daughter of a bandit. She was the daughter of the infamous Medusa.

Whatever name Medusa had answered to before she reached the Badstars, she’d discarded that identity completely. She was bosun on the bandit corvette Nemesis, which was captained by Julia Barlos. Medusa was also a legend for her pursuance of cold-hearted revenge. Anyone who crossed Medusa died painfully, and she gave them time to anticipate their death.

“Mom contacted me four months ago. We don’t talk. She snaps orders at me, and I ignore them. She repeated an earlier warning to keep my nose out of the Badstars and steer clear of all of them since I’d chosen to cozy up to the sheriffs. I thought she was drunk and disappointed with me.”

Only Medusa would be disappointed at her daughter befriending Thelma, and by extension, the influential people connected to her.

“She knew,” Helen snarled.

Thelma paused to think about it. Her nose wrinkled. That diaper change needed to happen soon. “Probably. I…this will sound awful. But I’m grateful to her. For all the Mayda kids and everyone, I think they should have told us. Maybe your mom should have done like Baagh and asked for help. But as Silas’s mom…Helen, your mom checked that you wouldn’t enter the Badstars and spread a possible contagion. That’s me thinking of Silas. I’m grateful. Your mom was thinking of you. If they don’t know what is making the children sick, they don’t know whether it might come to affect adults.”

Helen tapped her personal comms unit against her thigh. “I haven’t been in the Badstars for two years, and it’s been over a year since I’ve met a bandit in-person. Tornado will be the problem. Apart from the mercenary planet, the bandits otherwise hang in their own settlements.”

Tornado was a risk the bandits were willing to take for access to weapons and dark work.

“I wouldn’t normally ask,” Thelma said. “But what about places like the Deadstar Diner?” It was a refueling station as well as a restaurant.

“No. Too much risk of running into Customs agents,” Helen answered absently.

Thelma scrambled up. “Sorry. Silas needs a diaper change. I’m not thinking clearly. I know the bandits hang with their own.”

They had hidden bases in the Badstars where they socialized. When they visited the Saloon Sector, they carried the supplies they needed.

“Some of the asteroid mines,” Helen said reluctantly. “Sometimes asteroid miners buy from smugglers.”

Thelma’s family included asteroid miners.

“And they fence things.” The bandits, Helen meant. “What they steal, they have to sell. Consignments are safer handled off-Tornado. Rendezvousing on dark star routes.”

The Federation criminals could then scatter across the Saloon Sector and Reclamation Sector and, perhaps, further.

“Too many points of contact.” Thelma started walking to the house, well, mansion. Helen fell into step. “We have to tell everyone to avoid the Badstars and bandits. Stars but I hope this isn’t contagious.”

“If it is, and it gets out, the bandits won’t survive,” Helen said grimly. “They’re tolerated as a minor nuisance. If children die, the Federation will send in the Navy with full authority to eliminate any resistance.” She broke off as a thought struck her. “Is it just human children? The sick kids on Mayda. Are they all human? Most of the Badstars bandits are human. There are saurelles, but they’re clanless and don’t tend to have children. There are some urselves and a pocket of mauveinnes.”

Thelma made a mental note. The insectoid mauveinnes ought to be resistant to things that adversely affected mammals like humans and urselves, and vice versa.

Helen was furious. “I’ll call Mom. How the heck did they think they could—or should—keep this quiet?”

“They were afraid.”

Chapter 2

Thelma carried Silas into the house for a diaper change, while Helen headed in the opposite direction, intent on contacting her mom and finding out more about the danger on Mayda.

One of Ruth’s tendrils reached around Thelma and opened the door to the conservatory. “I heard. I told Harry and Reynard.”

“Ruth.” Thelma bit her lip. She intended to tell Harry. He was a touchstone for sensible behavior, and he made her feel safe. But she’d have told Max first, and not just because he was her husband. His official role as an interstellar sheriff whose territory bordered the Badstars meant that problems in that region dropped into his lap. “I understand why you’d want to tell Harry, but it’s a breach of trust. This was Helen’s conversation and she’s our guest.”

“And I was eavesdropping. But if Silas and other children are in danger, we have to help. It doesn’t sound as if the bandits are doing anything. I’m not a medical expert like Lucia, but even I know the Badstars have to be quarantined until the cause of the children’s illness is known. The sooner that happens—”

“Ruth!” Thelma snapped. “We need to discuss this properly. Can you ask Max and Carl to join us in the library in twenty minutes, and Harry and Reynard?”

The green and blue mottling across Ruth’s flower faces expressed her unhappy confusion. “What about Helen?”

“Helen will find me when she’s ready to talk.” When, or if, she’d managed to speak with her mom.

Ruth pivoted and sped away. The rigid lines of her tendrils indicated that she’d taken offense. Avgi clung to her trunk, steadied by a tendril. Actually, she was held there while she wriggled and stared back at Thelma and Silas.

She is an adolescent, Thelma reminded herself.

Ruth’s good nature and intelligence made it easy to indulge her. In adulthood, she’d learn that life could and did pull the rug out from under you, and there wasn’t always someone around to steady you.

Sometimes there were no good solutions, only compromises you had to live with.

Thelma glanced around Silas’s nursery. She and Max had furnished it with so much care. Memories occupied every part of it—and none could quite push the chill out of her body.

She was in shock. Courtney’s warning and plea for help had shown how fragile happiness and a sense of security could be.

They would return to the Homestead, today. This morning. Their spaceship was safer than the Lodge. Its decontamination protocols were first class.

She didn’t need to pack; apart from ensuring Mr. Growly went with them.

Blinking and refocusing, Thelma realized she’d rediapered Silas without conscious attention. She washed her hands, restored Mr. Growly to him from the rocking chair, and carried son and toy down to the library.

Max met her at the foot of the stairs. “Ruth says there’s trouble?”

But Thelma had seen Helen, and addressed her first. “Did your mom take your call?”

“No. But Captain Barlos did.”

Max’s shoulders stiffened on hearing the infamous bandit captain’s name.

Thelma saw Ioan watching from the entrance to the kitchen corridor. As steward and head of the Lodge’s security, had he overheard Courtney’s news? “Ioan, can you arrange transport for us back to the spacedock, please? Leaving in one hour.”

Frowning deeply, Max put a hand on her back, and guided her into the library.

Helen went ahead of them, and chose a seat as far from everyone as she could.

Harry waited by the window, with Ruth near him and Reynard pacing. “Helen, Ruth will apologize later, but she overheard your conversation via personal comms with Courtney Dushku, and once she heard that children on Mayda were dying.” Max’s gaze jerked from Harry to Silas, then locked with Thelma’s. Harry continued. “Ruth recorded the conversation. With your permission, she’ll replay it.”

Helen nodded.

They listened quietly, although Silas’s increasing restlessness meant grizzling soon.

“What did Captain Barlos say?” Max asked the moment the recording ended.

Helen wiped her hands down her thighs. Her gaze shot across the room. “Carl, Thelma and Max know. I meant to tell you, but I kept putting it off. I’m not an orphan. I don’t know my father. Mom would never tell me. But my mom is a bandit. She’s Medusa.”

“I never suspected,” Reynard said into the silence.

As a cyborg, Carl had complete control over his physiological responses. He could even flatten his emotions by controlling the chemicals in his blood. Not by the tiniest twitch did he react to Helen’s news: that she’d lied to him about the very foundations of her identity.

Violet stripes crept into the neutral beige of Ruth’s flower faces. Finally, she felt some doubt and guilt about her self-righteous decision to share information given in confidence, and not to her. Her impetuosity had contributed to forcing Helen’s confession. Notwithstanding her AI emancipation party last night, Ruth still had so much to learn.

The best analogy for Ruth’s status was that of a new high school graduate who’d chosen to stay with her family while attending college. Except that in Ruth’s case, there was no college. She was embarking on a year of self-directed study under Harry’s supervision.

Harry would help her understand how sometimes the best of intentions, and even justice on your side, were not sufficient reason to act immediately. Every action created ripples in people’s lives, and those ripples couldn’t be reversed.

The very fact that Carl controlled his reaction revealed that Helen’s secret had hurt him.

Helen transferred her focus to Max. “I tried to comm Mom. She didn’t answer, which isn’t unusual. But we don’t have time to wait around on Mom maybe responding in a few days when she’s sure it’s not a trick to catch her.”

Bandits tended to be paranoid. A threat to their children would worsen that trait.

“Since Mom wouldn’t answer, I comm’d the Nemesis. Mom hates that. They run silent. But Captain Barlos answered.” She swallowed. “Mom isn’t on the Nemesis. She’s gone off somewhere.”

That Helen found her mother’s disappearance worrying, worried Thelma.

“Captain Barlos isn’t a cozy person.”

Thelma absently rose and jiggled Silas, swaying and hoping to distract him from the beginning of a crying fit. “Cookie soon,” she whispered.

“Ga-aaaa.”

“Soon, soon,” Thelma crooned. They had to finish this conversation, then Silas could eat in the car on the drive to the spacedock. As Helen’s friend, Thelma owed her the emotional support of being present for this discussion.

Captain Barlos and the crew of the Nemesis rode a line between savagery and pragmatism. When they attacked a ship, everyone knew to meet Captain Barlos’s terms, or suffer the consequences, from torture and dismemberment to death. No one tested her, which meant that her cruel reputation, paradoxically, made her crew’s boarding of spaceships among those with the least casualties in the Federation; piracy as well as bandit actions included. Consequently, the Nemesis had never been the focus of an all-out hunt by the Interstellar Sheriff Service. Max, and other experienced sheriffs, knew that as bad as they were, if they were gone, the fight to claim their position would be vicious and the victor possibly one who reveled in violence.

“Mom’s been Captain Barlos’s bosun for as long as I can remember, but Mom never let me be part of that world. It’s not like I consider Captain Barlos an aunt or anything.” Helen couldn’t even leave off the captain’s title and call her “Barlos”. Captain Barlos was an authority in her world. “She said to me that Mom is a fixer. I know that. It’s Mom’s job. It’s what bosuns do. But that’s not what Captain Barlos meant. Not in this context. She said that Mom had taken the courier,” a small, fast spaceship, “to fix the problem on Mayda.”

Helen pressed her hands tightly against her thighs. “On the Nemesis, with its crew, Mom does solve problems. But when she’s called on to be a problem solver beyond the Nemesis, she’s out to kill.”

She refused to look at anyone. “If Mom’s gone to ‘fix’ the problem of the sick kids on Mayda, and Captain Barlos released her to do so, then both of them are aiming to assign blame to a person. Not to a virus or some natural pathogen. That’s all Captain Barlos said before she cut the connection. I don’t know if they have some clue that someone’s actions caused this, or if Mom is just going to send a message by assassinating some high-ranking official in the Federation.”

Thelma was wryly horrified to realize that Helen hadn’t said “attempt to assassinate”.

Helen believed that if her mom intended someone to die, that person was as good as dead. It was part of her mom’s reputation and name: Medusa.

To look on Medusa was to die.

“We need to start with proof,” Max said. “The recording is compelling, and the fact that you’re worried that Captain Barlos spoke to you, Helen, is another support that the bandits are facing disaster. But neither is actionable. Which means we can justify delaying our official report till we have proof that doesn’t reveal Courtney’s identity as an informant.”

He stared at Silas, who was grizzling and building to a wail in Thelma’s arms. “If we’re lucky, the diagnosis will be simple and the cause equally simple to treat. The doctors on Mayda are few, and their equipment basic.”

“Obviously,” Reynard snapped. “They’re isolated and criminalized by virtue of their associates. But children shouldn’t pay for adults’ sins. I’ll set off, now. I have the means of manufacturing whatever is required in terms of diagnostic equipment. Lucia can advise me.” Lucia was an AI embedded in the Federation’s pre-eminent medical space station, situated in the core worlds. “I’ll make what’s needed during the journey to Mayda.”

“If you’re asked,” Harry said.

“Asked by whom?” Reynard drummed a tentacle loudly against the library floor.

Silas’s crying intensified.

The tips of Ruth’s tendrils coiled. “I don’t understand.”

Max glared at Reynard before taking a deep breath. He released it as he concentrated on Ruth. “It’s an issue of coordination and competing authorities. It’s basic decency to want to save the children of Mayda. However, decisions will be complicated by other responsibilities and by different perspectives on how we save the kids.”

“It’s a collective judgement call,” Thelma said quietly.

Harry addressed Reynard. “Don’t cry to the stars. You have to accept that no solution is perfect. Not when dealing with people. It’s not like mathematics. Your solution might seem perfect to you. It might even perfectly resolve the problem you’re focused on. However, actions don’t happen in isolation. Your ‘perfect’ solution has implications and consequences.”

“Politics,” Reynard spat disgustedly.

“Politics is how we keep the Federation together,” Harry said.

Reynard swiveled to focus meaningly on Silas. “Don’t bring up the concept of acceptable losses.”

Thelma scowled. She was upset enough, wanting Silas safe on the Homestead, now, without being chastised for heeding the need to behave responsibly. “Reynard, you’re proving Max and Harry’s point. You’re focused on saving the children of Mayda and the Saloon Sector and Silas, in particular. But when you get tunnel vision you risk hurtling into new troubles. What happens if the bandits decide you shouldn’t approach their children on Mayda? What if they try to fight you to protect their children and you defend yourself, and in doing so, bandit ships explode and some of the children’s parents die?”

Reynard’s puffed up posture deflated somewhat.

Thelma pressed on. “What if it turns out the children need blood or bone marrow or something similar from their parents to be cured, and your actions have stolen that chance from them?”

“Aaargh.” Reynard stalked away on four of his tentacles.

“So, what do we do?” Ruth asked.

Harry gave her a hug. “That’s what we’re discussing. Reynard just wants to race into action. We all care, Reynard.”

The metallic purple AI grumbled, but he returned to the group and gently brushed one of Ruth’s faces in passing. Reynard had had to learn that touch was important, even for AIs, but he’d been conscientious in providing for that need when raising Ruth.

“I’m taking Silas to the Homestead,” Thelma said. “He’s the safest he can be there with Jesse’s decontamination protocols. And with him safe, I can think logically about next steps.”

Carl nodded solemnly. “With trouble coming, on our spaceships is the best place for a sheriff and his deputy. Can I hitch a ride to the spacedock?”

“Of course.” Thelma rubbed Silas’s back as he burrowed his face into her throat. “I need to go, now.”

“We can have this discussion onboard the Homestead,” Harry agreed.

Max looked up from his scowling contemplation of the floor. “I have to tell Aubree.” Aubree was Chief Aubree Tennyson, head of the Interstellar Sheriff Service for the Saloon and Reclamation Sectors, and Max’s boss. “Even without proof. Helen, whatever this is and whatever your mom is doing, I don’t want you to make yourself a target. Can you not contact anyone about this? No more questions until we kick open the doors to this discussion.”

“I won’t interfere, as long as you promise to ask for my help when you need it. Don’t try to protect me.” She stared at Max, avoiding any glimpse of Carl.

“Agreed.” He pulled a sympathetic face at Silas’s crying. “I know, kid. You’re picking up our tension as well as wanting a cookie and juice.”

Fortunately, Ioan and the other Lodge staff had arranged food as well as transport and security for the trip to the spacedock.

Silas was pacified with an oatmeal cookie.

Finally relaxing into the comfort of the back seat of the armored car driven by Wren, Thelma drank half the coffee in her travel mug before she attempted to get her thoughts in order.

The security protocol for the journey was practiced and efficient.

Reynard and Ruth, and Avgi, rode in the car in front of them. Harry rode in the security vehicle ahead of them. Guest cars were added behind Max and Thelma’s, with Ioan riding at the rear. Only the suicidal would take on an yprr kitted for war.

Helen and Carl shared a car. The atmosphere in it would be tense; unlike Thelma and Max’s shared silence. They had learned how to work independently, yet together.

It felt wicked of her to hope that the children on Mayda were sick because of something containable like a contaminated shipment of food. But if they’d been struck down by an infectious agent, then chaos could descend on the Saloon Sector.

Max and Aubree would have to act as if the worst of contagions was on the rampage. A quarantine. Media announcements. Medical staff mobilized.

Would the bandits accept help, or would it have to be forced on them?

Thelma’s best guess at the number of children sixteen and under on Mayda was twenty thousand. The colony didn’t like to reveal information about itself.

Silas finished his cookie, and Thelma automatically gave him a bottle of pear juice.

“I don’t have the authority to make the decisions this situation requires,” Max said. “But even before we have proof, we have to prepare. If it’s a possible contagion, the Badstars will have to be quarantined. There won’t be any way around it. The border’s been pretty open, all the more so with the official exploration of the Badstars in the last couple of years. That will change.”

He got out his personal comms unit and balanced it on his knee. “Enforcing the quarantine will require a collective effort. Us,” he meant the Interstellar Sheriff Service, “Customs, and the Navy. Whoever is on patrol has to be able to take on bandit ships if they breach the border. The border monitoring system can handle alerts. We switch from simply recording crossings to acting on them.”

“Mobilizing that many resources requires rock solid proof.” Thelma foresaw trouble. “We’ll have to deal with people we’d rather avoid.”

“Andrew Vuthaj,” Max growled.

She smiled ruefully. “Him, and I was thinking about the Navy.”

It was two years since a rogue group within the Navy had arranged the destruction of the Lonesome, Max’s spaceship, in their attempt to acquire a raphus geode. That the raphus geode had been inside and giving life to the AI Lon, who was embedded in the Lonesome, hadn’t mattered to the cabal. All they’d focused on was gaining a raphus geode to raise their own secret and enslaved AI.

As far as the Federation knew, Lon had died in the attempt and his raphus geode had crumbled into pink dust.

In fact, Lon was very much alive, in a new spectral form. He hadn’t died or transcended. It turned out that the raphus geodes that powered artificial intelligences were actually seeds of life from a species colloquially known as specters. To the rest of the Federation, they were mythical. Fairy tales. For Thelma and Max, who’d met Lon in his spectral form and Lon’s progenitor, Ta-Lon, the specters were very real. That they were disengaged from the struggles of organic life was undoubtedly for the best. Their knowledge and power were awe-inspiring.

Keeping the secret of the raphus geodes’ true nature—their ability to fuse with other species, whether organic or inorganic, to create new life—meant Thelma and Max had to maintain the public story of Lon’s death.

Thelma missed him. He’d been present for Ruth’s first year of life and Silas’s birth, but then he’d vanished on mysterious specter affairs. Their sole contact with him at the moment was via Ta-Lon’s rare and unheralded visits, and Ta-Lon proved an enigmatic messenger.

Despite the destruction of the Lonesome and Lon’s recorded death, Max and the Navy had patched up their working relationship. In the vast distances of space, an interstellar sheriff had to be able to call on the Navy for backup. The Navy’s incentive to restore cordial relations with Max didn’t center on his official role so much as on his personal life.

The Federation President, John Smith, was his father.

On his mother’s side, Max had inherited a fortune and substantial shares in the Hwicce Corporation.

Politically, socially and financially, he was connected.

All of that counted for less than his relationship with the AIs. Knowledge that Max and Thelma were parenting the newest AI might have been highly classified, but those who made it their business to know the influential people in the Federation were aware of Max and Thelma Smith of the Saloon Sector. He was its most famous sheriff. She was an information broker with a growing network of connections.

She’d have to lean on that network to get the proof of the crisis on Mayda which Max needed to take action.

Max rescued the juice bottle as Silas dozed off. With his free hand, he cupped the back of Thelma’s neck. “Silas will be fine. He’ll be safe with us on the Homestead.” He waited till Thelma nodded before kissing her briefly. “I’ll call Aubree, now.”

His role was to contain the crisis, while health experts resolved it. The challenge would be in managing all the stakeholders. For a start, the bandits’ cooperation was essential, which meant dealing with the governor of Mayda, at minimum, and possibly with the bandits’ so-called leadership group, their Admiralty.

The thought of negotiating with Mayda’s governor, Andrew Vuthaj, twisted Max’s gut.

Vuthaj was a criminal, formerly the second-in-command of an interstellar criminal organization. Vuthaj had been bound for the incarceration space station of Stratford Alcatraz when his prison transport was intercepted. Vuthaj was taken. Two guards died. The pilot survived. No one had known who’d arranged the breakout, but Vuthaj had arrived in the Badstars within a year, and been promptly appointed governor by the coalition of Mayda residents and bandit ship captains who outsourced running the planet to a callous buzzard. Vuthaj met that criterion. During that unaccounted for year, the mutilated corpse of the man who’d given up Vuthaj’s location and evidence of his crimes to local law enforcement had turned up, in pieces, on the steps of the courthouse where Vuthaj had been tried and convicted.

That man had been his former boss, who’d tried to use the legal system to eliminate a rival.

As ruthless as Vuthaj was, Mayda had been stable for the five years he’d been governor. Moreover, Vuthaj seemed content to rule his small world. There had been no hints of his power and machinations snaking out through the loose alliance of bandit ships to alter their patterns of small-scale piracy and smuggling.

If they had a plague in the Badstars, then they’d need Vuthaj’s cold-blooded efficiency.

“Aubree?” Max studied the polished toes of his boots as his call connected. He couldn’t handle talking of children’s deaths and seeing his son or his wife’s anxious expression. “I’ve heard a rumor of children dying in the Badstars, on Mayda.”

“Max, I do not need another problem,” Aubree said sharply. “Nor do you.”

Despite himself, he glanced at Thelma.

She raised her eyebrows and faintly shook her head. She had no idea why the normally unflappable Chief of the Interstellar Sheriff Service for two sectors was in a snarly mood.

Aubree informed them. “There’s been a high profile murder. In your territory,” she added ominously.

“Who? And why have you heard about it first?”

If someone called in a crime, it should have gone through the Zephyr spacedock’s Sheriff’s Office. Owen had formal and informal procedures in place so that no news or rumor slipped by him.

How had the children’s sickness on Mayda not triggered an alert somewhere?

“Jonathon Neziri,” Aubree said. “Co-founder of SwarmTQ. Two days ago, he died, seemingly in his sleep, onboard the Hiveheart, just outside the Navy’s testing range. The remaining co-founder is also onboard, and embargoed news of Neziri’s death getting out. He had the captain shut down comms. They only told the Navy.”

SwarmTQ was partnering with the Navy to test its newest venture, hive mind linked body suits. The details of the suits’ design and the testing procedure were classified, which, Max supposed, partly explained the use of a frontier Navy testing range.

“The Navy sent their nearest spaceship to render assistance.” Aubree employed the euphemism for the Navy taking charge of a situation. “Commander Bradley Tolis, the Naval Intelligence officer on the corvette Oluja, secured the murder scene on the Hiveheart. He ran preliminary diagnostics. Neziri was poisoned. Bunyaphi venom.”

Face paling, Thelma gulped.

“That’s not good.”

“No kidding,” Aubree responded with cheap sarcasm before she reined herself in. “It’s only preliminary diagnostics. And this is where we hit our first big snag. Commander Tolis was unable to progress beyond preliminary analysis because the Hiveheart has been monitoring the testing of the hive mind suits from just outside the Navy testing range.”

Max groaned. “Someone on the Hiveheart claimed Commander Tolis didn’t have jurisdiction.” It wasn’t a guess. In his job Max had encountered plenty of people who lived to thwart authority. There were always methods of dealing with them. “Have you sworn Tolis in as a deputy?”

In the Saloon Sector, frontier law applied, and one of the quirks was that a sheriff’s deputy could hold a second job. Max wouldn’t normally deputize a Navy officer, but in these circumstances—a high-profile murder and a body decaying, its evidence degrading with every hour away from a medical examiner—involving the Navy made sense.

“SwarmTQ’s lawyers have kiboshed the idea. Reid Shehu, the living co-founder onboard the Hiveheart, seems intent on staying out of the Navy’s jurisdiction. As things stand, Commander Tolis’s evidence should stand up in court, but further Navy involvement would jeopardize our case. SwarmTQ’s lawyers have stated they’d challenge the legality of it.”

“It is legal,” Max said, frustrated.

“It’s easier to have SwarmTQ on our side than fighting us.”

Max huffed. “In practical terms, I’m guessing that means I have to collect Neziri’s body and transport it back to Zephyr for autopsy? The Homestead can reach the Navy testing range in a week. Depending on the Hiveheart’s speed—”

“The Hiveheart’s captain is refusing to move,” Aubree interrupted Max’s planning. “Or, given how uncomfortable Captain Morrison sounds, I’d say Reid Shehu has ordered them to remain outside the Navy testing range, on the fringe of the hazan field.”

“They’re lurking in a hazan field?” Max tugged at an ear. After years as a sheriff, the idiocy of people should have ceased to surprise him.

Aubree continued, drily. “Apparently, they’re staying put so you can assess the environment in which Neziri was murdered.”

Hazan fields were strange enough that a small ship might have been able to creep up on the Hiveheart undetected.

“This is stupid,” Max said.

“Or clever,” Aubree countered. “Depending on who murdered Neziri. If it was someone onboard the Hiveheart, it’ll be nearly a month before the autopsy. The timing may be important. And before you ask, Max, I don’t know of any reason it is.”

She cleared her throat. “I’ll send through Commander Tolis’s report. He found a scratch mark that matches a bunyaphi spine. He swabbed a quarter of the wound. The sample tested positive for venom. He used a medi-doc.”

“A medi-doc’s findings won’t stand as evidence in a court case.”

“Being as it’s calibrated for living tissue not degrading tissue,” Aubree agreed. “It is accurate, however.”

Arguing legal technicalities was for lawyers. Max accepted his boss’s point about the accuracy of the test. If the medi-doc said it was bunyaphi venom, then it was. “Most poisons can be copied.”

“I have discussed this, exhaustively, with Commander Tolis. It’s beyond the medi-doc to distinguish between artificial or natural venom. Nor can it, if the venom is natural, determine the DNA of the individual who produced the venom. The critical facts are that Neziri was murdered, the method used was bunyaphi venom, and bunyaphi affairs are complicated in the Saloon Sector. Ask Thelma about them.”

“I’m here,” Thelma said. “We’re traveling back to the Homestead.”

Aubree sighed. “Children dying. SwarmTQ and the bunyaphi are a headache. Bandit children dying would be something else again.” Her tone wasn’t as unsympathetic as her words. “It’s not the sort of thing we can act on with mere rumors. Even seeking confirmation of…Thelma, could you take the lead on that?”

“Me?” Thelma was independent. Her contract with Galactic Justice had been cancelled years ago. She worked for herself as an information broker; utilizing what she called her analytical engine, which was the array of analytical tools and databases constantly updated and reconfigured that Lon had helped her develop.

“Why?” Max asked.

“We need proof of the children’s sickness and of conditions on Mayda and in the Badstars. It’s a catch-22. Without that proof, Max’s focus has to be solving the high profile murder case with all its complicated ramifications. News of Neziri’s death could break at any moment. Business logic means the surviving co-founder will spin the announcement for SwarmTQ’s purposes—maintaining its market position—without consulting us on timing or details given. Commander Tolis has not told them the cause of death, which gives you a tiny bit of breathing room, Max. Not enough for you to also hunt down details of the situation on Mayda.”

Aubree tapped something on her end of the call. “I’ll have to contact Edgar for his latest report on the bandits, and ask him what, if anything, he knows about this rumor.”

Edgar “The Otter” Ottawa had replaced Aubree as Galactic Justice’s agent on Zephyr. He was not authorized to carry out an interstellar investigation, but as his base on Zephyr was the nearest Galactic Justice office to the Badstars, the doings of the bandits fell into his reporting responsibilities.

“He’s an annoying git,” Aubree said. “But he can keep a secret. If this sickness has been going on for months without news of it getting out, it would be helpful if it remained secret until we’ve learned the details and coordinated a response. Another nightmare. Inter-agency disaster response.”

Her staccato tapping increased in frequency. “There are over one hundred thousand people on Mayda and more bandits roaming space. That many people don’t keep a secret like this.”

“Scared, isolated and ruled by dictators, maybe they do,” Thelma said.

Aubree’s tapping stopped. “I don’t like it.”

“None of us do,” Max said. He added deliberately, because Helen was Thelma’s friend, and his, too, and her mom was an issue they had to address, discreetly. “As the news gets out, tensions will rise across the region. We may have to raise the threat level.”

Aubree swore, but couldn’t disagree.

A higher threat level would automatically increase security arrangements for people in high office. Aubree, herself, would be required to allow a bodyguard.

Max didn’t envy that person their task.

After years as a Galactic Justice agent, Aubree’s instinct was to evade anyone following her.

“There are always reasons to raise the threat level,” she said. “As much as I don’t personally want to, I’ll see if I can push other buttons to get the heightened security arrangements in place before this goes public.”

She scarcely paused. “I can tell Edgar, but I can’t trust this to him to follow up. He’s concentrated his spying on Zephyr and the Navy station build. He doesn’t have the network to coax the bandits’ secrets from them. So, we’re doing this unofficially till we get the proof. Thelma, get the proof.” She hung up.

Max and Thelma looked at each other across Silas’s sleeping form.

“This is too big for you to handle alone,” he said.

“I won’t be. Aubree knows I’ll have the AIs’ help. I already planned to dig into the problem. This gives me official clearance to do so. I’m glad to have something to do. It’s better than dreaming up horrible scenarios.”

He understood. Action could interrupt downward spirals of depressing what-ifs. Lack of information served to make those what-if scenarios all the wilder. “All right. But despite what Aubree said, if I can help, I want to.”

“Me, too.” She smiled tensely at him. “About the bunyaphi…”

The Ates bunyaphi clan had contracted Thelma in her role as an information broker to provide monthly updates on current affairs in the Saloon Sector and to act as their cultural consultant on specific issues and events.

To do her job effectively, she’d had to learn about them, and she kept up to date on all bunyaphi activity in the Saloon Sector.

Since the bunyaphi had been painstakingly law-abiding in the Saloon Sector, Max had directed his attention elsewhere. “Tell me everything.”

“Well, for a start, bunyaphi don’t use their spines to kill each other, let alone outsiders.”

Bunyaphi feuds were legendary. There was no one they liked to fight more than one another.

“You’re sure?” Max asked.

“Yes. It’s a matter of honor. Few bunyaphi develop palm spines. The spur grows here.” She tapped the base of one hand just before it joined her wrist. “With the venom sac beneath it.” She traced the inner skin of her wrist before flicking it. “Traditionally, possessing a palm spine meant the individual joined the warrior caste. After the bunyaphi discarded the caste system, having a palm spine came to be seen as tying the individual to a primitive past. It’s not discussed in polite society, but a study did show that there is a significantly higher proportion of palm spines among members of the Bunyaphi military and police forces.”

“The modern warrior class.” Max was one of them.

Thelma rubbed the base of her palm. “I have no idea how many bunyaphi in the Saloon Sector have palm spines. I don’t know what the symptoms of the venom are in non-bunyaphi. Actually, I don’t know what they are in bunyaphi.”

Max looked it up on his personal comms unit. “Convulsions and asphyxiation in bunyaphi. Humans just die. The heart stops. Neziri wouldn’t have had a chance to call for help.”

“If he was killed in his sleep, he simply never woke up.”

Max hummed noncommittally. Until the autopsy and a complete investigation of the scene, they could only make assumptions.

Unfortunately, other people would also make assumptions, especially if this information leaked, which was why Aubree had prioritized the case.

“People will blame the Su clan,” Thelma said.

The three main bunyaphi clans, the Ates, Toprak and Su clans, were establishing the first bunyaphi settlement outside the Boldire Sector, their home world sector. A perilous wormhole between the Boldire Sector and the Saloon Sector provided the logistical connection and reason. The Saloon Sector’s frontier laws and lifestyle provided the freedom for the bunyaphi to try new things, make mistakes and not be irretrievably ruined by them. That said, the biggest reason for the bunyaphi’s expansion into the Saloon Sector was their desire to recover their reputation in the Federation.

One of the heirs to the Su clan had shamed all bunyaphi when he’d arranged for a few of his own people, volunteers, to be mech-modded. Mech-mods weren’t like cyborgs where changes to the individual’s body built on its pre-existing capabilities and were carefully crafted to augment rather than alter the person. A mech-mod acquired a mechanical body and abilities their mind wasn’t equipped to manage. The software from the mech-mod could support the technology’s functionality in the short term, but in the longer term, the organic sentient went insane. And “longer term” was measured in days, if not hours.

Mech-mods were banned across the Federation.

To have turned his own people into insane weapons of war struck at the heart of bunyaphi notions of personal and clan honor.

All bunyaphi wanted to reclaim their reputation as fierce but righteous members of the Federation.

The Federation wanted to ensure that the legendary, lethal bunyaphi feuds didn’t spill out of the Boldire Sector into other regions. To this end, Federation Parliament had meddled in the Saloon Sector’s Resources Assignment Board’s deliberations.

The bunyaphi clans’ separate applications for territory in the Saloon Sector had been met with one stipulation: the three clans had to jointly settle the habitable, but unclaimed, planet of Barguzin. The idea was to force them to work together. The sub-idea was to contain their inevitable squabbles. With them jointly settled on Barguzin, the clans could then branch out to other territory. However, the economic cost of establishing simultaneously a primary and secondary base outside the Boldire Sector was significant; sufficiently discouraging that the Ates and Toprak clans had rejected it. Their focus was Barguzin.

While their focus was Barguzin, the bunyaphi had to remain alert to opportunities and threats in their new environment.

“Why blame the Su clan?” Max asked. “Because they’re already disgraced? Poison isn’t mech-mods.”

“You know how the bunyaphi hold grudges. They won’t forgive the Su clan bringing shame on them in this generation. They won’t forget ever. The Su clan are flying a path of redemption at the moment. It’s influencing all their decisions. They’re willing to sacrifice their financial standing for it.”

She grimaced. “This is probably why Aubree has a bee in her bonnet. In addition to settling Barguzin, the Su clan are competing with SwarmTQ for a moon in Cayor’s territory. They believe they can terraform it. The idea is to establish a space station on the moon’s own moon as a base to work from, and to convert part of that base into a refueling station. They’re using the Deadstar Diner as a model. In contrast, SwarmTQ wants to leave the large moon unterraformed, but set up a base there on which to produce and trial its technology.”

“A moon base.” Max whistled.

“Yeah, it’s ambitious, and rival ambitions can clash. What do you know about SwarmTQ?”

“I focused on their Navy connection and the current, classified testing. The hive mind body suits are a new thing for them. They’ve built their business on small, self-replicating swarm technology—the kind that is forbidden to be built and tested outside a space station.”

They stared at one another in mutual acknowledgement that they’d reached a crucial fact.

Thelma put it into words. “If SwarmTQ gain permission to build a moon base in the Saloon Sector, even with it being a frontier zone, it would establish a precedent for swarm technology exemptions from the Immolation Protocol.”

Research and development into organic and inorganic contagious material was legally bound to occur solely on space stations designed to self-immolate in the event of an uncontrolled contagious event.

Max ran a hand through his hair. “I hope the Su clan win the bid for the moon.”

Thelma frowned. “Let’s hope no one tried to murder their way to that outcome.”

Chapter 3

Silas woke when the car halted at the base of the spacedock.

Thelma scooped him up, inhaling the soft baby scent of him as he babbled sleepily to himself. Ruth’s emancipation party had affected Thelma in a manner she hadn’t anticipated. It made her value Silas’s longer human childhood. He would need her, turn to her, be hers for years. Ruth was already independent. She might be joining them on the Homestead for another year, but the AI didn’t need Thelma and Max.

As they entered the tower to take the elevator up to the spacedock, Harry came up on Thelma’s left. Max was on her right.

“Problem?” Harry asked.

They had a couple of those, but they weren’t what was currently bothering her.

She rested her head against his shoulder, while Silas reached out to pat Harry’s armored chest. “Parenting is hard.” She smiled and shook her head when Max looked at her sharply. “I’m fine. This isn’t even,” she lowered her voice, “about the Mayda stuff. I’m realizing, truly realizing, that Ruth is all grown up. I don’t know how my mom let me go to the Galactic Justice academy. Part of me wants to lock Ruth in her quarters on the Homestead and never let her go.” Her shaky laugh barely hid the threat of tears.

“Nowhere is far for an AI.” Reynard meant to be comforting, but missed the point. It wasn’t physical distance that Thelma mourned.

As Reynard referenced, AIs dealt in digital communication. The Federation’s efficient telecommunications network kept them as closely connected as they wished to be. Raising Ruth had increased their chatter and sense of solidarity. She was everyone’s child, which could have become a burden, except that Harry stood in between and sheltered her. She was his, first.

One of Ruth’s tendrils wrapped lightly around Thelma’s wrist even as the young AI closely monitored her new dragon. “You’ll always be family, Thelma. You and Max. Silas. I’ll always need you to love me.”

Harry leant across and kissed one of Ruth’s flower faces.

Ruth was more emotionally developed and caring than many much older AI. The nurturing environment she’d grown up in had gifted her an innate confidence in expressing her feelings. She could give as well as receive care.

They reached the spacedock and Helen refused to hug the Homestead group good-bye.

Any protest Thelma might have made was silenced by her own distress and uncertainty, but also by the fact that Helen and Carl appeared to have reconciled on the drive to the spacedock. Carl had an arm around her waist, and independent Helen leaned ever so slightly into him.

Carl was a cyborg and a Covert Ops agent. He understood keeping secrets, and he’d known Helen for over two years. He’d had time to learn to trust her. Moreover, if anyone could survive Medusa as a potential mother-in-law, it was Carl.

“Bye, Helen, Carl.”

The group split up. Some had their own ships to get to. In Owen’s case, he headed for the Sheriff’s Office. Even if everyone hadn’t been formally briefed on the situation, they were readying themselves for action.

Thelma was glad to see the Homestead looming ahead of her behind the lock-tunnel. As much as she’d needed to hold Silas close, he was heavy.

Criminals didn’t find the sight of the Homestead so reassuring.

The Homestead was a mobile base that supported Max in his work as sheriff, and provided everyone else with the means of pursuing their own interests regardless of where Max’s job took them.

The spaceship had been designed and built by Reynard, but with input from many others. Receiving real-time critique and being forced to actually collaborate on aspects of the project had, according to Harry, been an excellent learning experience for the purple tentacled AI. Thelma smiled wryly as she recalled her role as project manager, responsible for bringing the Homestead to completion on time and to budget. She had shamelessly used Ruth’s enthusiasm and the other AIs’ obsession with the youngest AI’s safety, to manage Reynard.

The deadline of Silas’s birth had also played a role.

Reynard was friendly with the Lodge staff, especially the yprr security team whose armor he’d redesigned, but he believed that the safest environment for such precious cargo as Ruth and Silas wasn’t on a planet, but in a spaceship of his construction.

The Homestead was as safe as obsession could make it.

It wasn’t home, though, in the way the Lonesome had been. Lon was missing.

In place of an AI embedded in the spaceship, the Homestead had a nascent intelligence.

Most people in the Federation never interacted on a personal level with an AI, so they tended to misidentify nascent intelligences, that were far more common, as artificial intelligences. Thelma knew the difference.

Even the best designed nascent intelligence couldn’t make the jump in consciousness levels to register on psion meters as sentient. Their interactions with true sentients could mimic the patterns of sentience to the point where people treated them as such, but spontaneous emotion, as opposed to programmed emotion, was lacking. Like AIs, the nascent intelligences were powered by rubyjoo, the liquid crystal that powered quantary computers. What they lacked was a raphus geode.

The AIs guarded the secret of the raphus geodes with great care. The Federation scientists knew that, to date, the only successful artificial intelligences all possessed a raphus geode core. What the scientists didn’t know—but which Thelma and Max had been permitted to learn—was that the raphus geodes were actually seeds of life from the specters; those ancient, mysterious people who’d created the seeds to take on the characteristics of whatever lifeform grew around them.

Nonetheless, Thelma and Max were bringing up Silas to interact with nascent intelligences with the same courtesy given to people. Consequently, she patted the hatchway as she entered and addressed Jesse, the Homestead’s nascent intelligence. “Hi, Jesse. We’re back early.”

Silas blew a sleepy bubble and waved a hand.

With the lock-tunnel hatch closed behind them, giving them privacy, Harry told them he’d informed Jesse about the crisis on Mayda.

“I have the medi-doc ready for Silas. A check-up for your peace of mind,” Jesse said.

Thelma laid her son on the medi-doc’s bed. She stretched her cramped arms.

Max’s arms went around her from behind as he rubbed her arms.

They watched the medi-doc’s swift, thorough assessment of their son.

“All is well,” Jesse said. “But, with your permission, I’ll forward the assessment to Lucia for double-checking?”

“Lucia wants to help,” Harry said.

Max picked Silas up and held him in one arm, with his other arm around Thelma. “Jesse, send the results, please. And thank Lucia for us.”

“The medi-doc was a good idea, Jesse,” Thelma said. “Thanks.”

Rationally, Thelma knew that Jesse’s concern was a product of the nascent intelligence’s programming. The Homestead’s operating system had been designed to prioritize the care and protection of Thelma’s family; defined as Max, Silas, Ruth and herself. Harry had insisted that he and Reynard be classed one degree less vital, akin to Thelma’s parents or Carl and Helen when they visited. Jesse’s actions were a direct result of his programming. Yet, his concern felt as real, was as real in effect, as if it was a freely emerging gift of caring.

As a group, they moved toward Ruth’s living quarters.

Reynard led the way. “Lucia has sent me schematics for the diagnostic equipment. Bah. I had to pay for some of them.”

“Reynard disapproves of profit-making in healthcare,” Ruth interjected quietly. She handed him the wicker hamper holding Avgi. Her focus was on Silas. “May I hold him?”

Max handed over Silas, who settled naturally in a cradle of Ruth’s tendrils.

“Time is of the essence,” Reynard said.

They were all watching Silas. Other children, every bit as precious to those who loved them, were at risk.

“It is,” Max agreed.

Harry intervened before Reynard could push for instant action. Perhaps he also sent Reynard a silent, digital message to chill. “Lucia has volunteered to consult with the Federal Health Union on diagnosis and treatment.”

Thelma summoned a smile. “That’s kind of her.”

“It’s for Silas,” Ruth said. “To keep him safe. The other AIs will want to do the same. They connected with you, my family, as you shared in raising me. They’ll want to help.”

Thelma wrapped an arm around Ruth’s trunk. She kissed one of her flower faces, which was a lemon-yellow streaked with crimson that revealed her worry and love.

“We appreciate it,” Max said. He touched his son’s hair.

For the Homestead’s occupants and their extended, confusing, multi-species family, the response to the Mayda mess was vital in itself, but it was also personal. Silas was the ever-present reminder of who would be at risk if the children’s sickness in the Badstars spread.

“Oh!” Ruth exclaimed as everyone else fell back and she entered her quarters first.

While they’d been on Zephyr, at the Lodge, Jesse had installed a dragon enclosure in a corner of Ruth’s workshop.

“I designed and built it,” Reynard said. “I consulted Helen. Jesse installed it.”

Max took his sleepy son back, freeing Ruth.

“It’s wonderful.” She opened the hamper and scooped Avgi out. She gently placed her on a wide ledge about two feet off the ground. It had a shallow cavern behind it, carefully sized for an adult dragon. “The sand is warm.”

“Yes, and there’s a heat lamp in this corner.”

Avgi confidently explored the space.

Thelma had seen it before.

Two days ago, Helen had brought over her dragon, Katu, and he’d scampered through the enclosure. Even if his scent had faded, remnants remained, and since Helen had raised Avgi, the young dragon would find them reassuring.

Thelma fell into musing on the question of how to acquire proof of the children’s condition on Mayda.

If Lon was here, she’d work with him on the problem. There were so many possible ramifications to every choice. They would have combined his analytical ability and processing speed with her intuition to choose who to trust with her questions and how to structure her approach.

Unfortunately, Lon was absent on his own personal quest to explore what it meant to be a specter. In his new form, the universe had opened to him in new ways. Thelma didn’t begrudge him his new life, but she missed him.

He would have talked through with her the implications of Aubree assigning this evidence-gathering task to her, someone outside official authority.

As a citizen, and not a civil servant, Thelma couldn’t commit the Federation to anything. Any promises she made were hers alone.

But the mistakes she made could affect hundreds of thousands of people, including her family and friends.

There were risks to whatever path she took, including the path of delay.

Someone always had to make a judgement call—and live with the consequences.

Reynard’s impatience simmered in her, too.

Currently, his spaceship was docked with the Homestead. He’d designed the Homestead for exactly that purpose. Ships could dock with it, locking onto it like another module; as he’d done with the design of the jail block for prisoner transport.

“Reynard, can you leave for Mayda immediately?” she asked.

“Yes.” He bounced on his tentacles.

“I’ll focus on gaining permission for you to drop off the diagnostic equipment. We might wish we sent other things with you—”

“I can manufacture them inflight.”

She raised an eyebrow. “Like food?”

“Um.”

“Guaranteed uncontaminated,” Thelma said.

“I could wait a day or two,” he began.

“Except that a bulk order of food for twenty thousand children would grab attention and where would you fit it?”

Distracted from her new pet, Ruth directed her attention their way. “There are no easy answers,” she said sadly. “Reynard, Harry warned us.”

Reynard crossed over to the dragon enclosure.

Max intervened. “It’s a question of different responsibilities. In a sense, there is only one answer for Reynard. The diagnostic equipment he volunteered to deliver to Mayda is vital. He also wants to help, now. Thelma has factored that into her overall strategy of finding proof of what’s happening on Mayda, and more than that, of finding a means of helping the children. Sometimes the overall situation can be complicated, but each individual’s role remains simple.”

“So, I’m the delivery guy?” Reynard was listening.

“You’re resourceful, clever and amazing,” Thelma said. “Having you in place near Mayda should help into the future.” In space, distance equaled time. “How long will it take you to reach Mayda?”

It wasn’t just distance. In the Badstars there were hazards to be navigated through or avoided. When the bandits had settled Mayda, they’d liked that the habitable planet was difficult to reach from the Federation. Now, that added layer of protection had become another hassle.

“Eleven weeks.” Reynard pushed his spaceship in ways organic sentients wouldn’t dare.

“Nearly three months.”

It would take the Homestead nine days to reach the Hiveheart on the far side of the Navy’s testing range. From there, back to the border with the Badstars, would take the Homestead three weeks, and that was without a detour to deliver Neziri’s body for autopsy on Zephyr.

They’d have to ask Owen to arrange for someone to rendezvous with them and take Neziri’s body. But that was Max’s job and decision. From Thelma’s perspective, the issue was that even without delays, they wouldn’t reach the border for a month or more.

The children on Mayda couldn’t wait a month for her to acquire proof of their sickness.

She felt sick. “As soon as the bandits know that we suspect a sickness in the Badstars, they’ll anticipate the Federation imposing a quarantine. If we’re not in place to enforce it, they’ll break it before we start.”

“They’re crossing into the Saloon Sector, now, anyway.” By Max’s grim tone, this was a complication he’d already considered. “I don’t think you should let it influence your actions. Your role is to get the proof Aubree needs to compel the Federation to act.” He frowned. “I’ll try to wrap up the investigation into Neziri’s death or force SwarmTQ’s cooperation. Whatever happens, I’d like to be closer to either the border or Zephyr, than stuck in a hazan field.”

Alone in his office on the Homestead, Max clicked open the information packet Aubree had sent him.

Commander Bradley Tolis’s report and crime scene photos were excellent.

The deceased, Jonathon Neziri, was fifty six years old. Twice married and twice divorced. No children. He’d been single at the time of his death. His physique revealed his hobby of running marathons. The crime scene photos showed a shrunken figure. That’s what death did.

Murder might be rare in deep space, but natural and accidental deaths happened. Max had grown familiar with the diminishment of it. In death, Neziri’s purple punk hair and tattoos looked pathetic.

The vain posturing of life. Some philosopher had said that. Max had read a lot of philosophy the first year out of the Star Marines when he’d been trying to adjust to civilian life.

He’d been healing.

He had never imagined a life such as he had now; one filled with family and friends and love. One where his instinct had become to share problems.

He had certainly never imagined that one of his closest friends would be a Covert Ops cyborg.

The corners of his mouth twitched upward in momentary, sardonic amusement. Carl would probably say the same about him. Max’s financial status and his parents’ social status were precisely what Carl’s egalitarian nature despised.

Max sent his deputy all the information he had on Jonathon Neziri’s murder and the possible bunyaphi complication, and asked Carl to call to discuss it.

Within the hour, Carl did so. He brought to the discussion his experience as a Covert Ops agent who’d worked undercover as a mercenary specializing in theft.

“It would be possible to sneak aboard the Hiveheart. Even without seeing the design of it, I can think of five methods.” Exasperation at the sheer stupidity of people crept into his voice. “Why is the ship lurking in the fringe of a hazan field anyway?”

“Hazard a guess,” Max invited.

“It’s outside the Navy’s borders? But so is a whole lot of safer space.”

Max tapped his pen on the open page of the old-fashioned paper notebook he’d been scrawling ideas in. The notebooks were where he recorded his private thoughts. Question marks and arrows emphasized unknowns and possible connections. “You’re right that Neziri and Shehu wanted to be outside the Navy’s jurisdiction—and that’s an issue we’ll come back to. But I suspect they were also posturing. Something along the lines of a hazan field being preferable to the Navy’s surveillance inside the testing range. It’s difficult for a corporation to present itself as anti-establishment. The Navy is a big enough entity that SwarmTQ tried to have it both ways. Both contracting to work with the Navy on the hive mind suits and shouting to the galaxy that SwarmTQ is independent.”

“Anti-establishment billionaires? Right,” Carl drawled scornfully.

“Their lawyers have already filed a protest at the Navy interjecting itself into the investigation of Jonathon Neziri’s death. Aubree forwarded me the notice.”

Max listened to a few seconds of dumbfounded silence. He’d had a similar reaction.

Carl muttered a rude descriptor of all lawyers. “What did they want instead? For their boss’s body to rot in his cabin? You’re days out.”

“Nine days,” Max said. “The Navy approved the Homestead to cut through its restricted range. The Hiveheart could come to meet us. They’re refusing. That’s partly what the lawyers are preparing to argue in court. By convention, the Hiveheart should be assisting the investigation by minimizing the days of travel for a sheriff to reach them.”

“What are they hiding?” Carl asked with the cynicism of an experienced law enforcement official.

“I’m curious,” Max admitted. “But it could merely be ego.”

“Huh.”

Max shrugged. “Or grief. Reid Shehu started SwarmTQ with Neziri three decades ago. That’s a long term partnership, and he’s onboard the Hiveheart. Grief can make people difficult.”

“Shehu is a suspect.”

“Yes.” Max underlined Reid Shehu’s name in his notebook. “I’ve requested a copy of Neziri’s will and contacted SwarmTQ’s legal department for a summary of how his death will affect the corporation.”

“Whoever did this could have faked it to resemble a natural death or an accident. Instead, they’ve pushed the bunyaphi connection at us.”

Max circled the Su clan in his notebook. Two arrows pointed to it: one from the Ates clan; the other from the Toprak clan. “Just the suspicion of bunyaphi involvement might be enough to fracture their Saloon Sector alliance. I discussed it with Thelma. The Su clan is still deeply in disgrace over the mech-mods. I’m guessing that even without proof, Ates and Toprak would pounce on an opportunity to cast the Su off Barguzin.”

“Politics,” Carl said in the tone of voice others reserved for a cockroach infestation.

“Inescapable.” Max discarded his notebook for the official sheriff’s calendar and task list he shared with his deputy. “And since politics takes time…” They began the tedious task of reshuffling ongoing duties between them, and Owen, to free up more of Max’s time for the murder investigation. They also juggled their plans to bring them closer to the border with the Badstars for when the quarantine order was inevitably issued.

“That’ll be fun,” was Carl’s heavily ironic sign-off. Enforcing the border would be a nightmare.

They would need allies.

After his call with Carl, Max touched base with Commander Tolis. “I appreciate your report, Commander. I wish I could leave the case with you.”

“I’m not sorry to hand it over. The bunyaphi angle is outside my area of expertise. You have my, and the Navy’s, full support. We stand by to assist the Interstellar Sheriff Service.”

“Thanks,” Max said briefly.

Tolis didn’t linger over the courtesies of inter-service cooperation. “I’ve been ordered to talk frankly about the hive mind suits and the testing. The Navy won’t be proceeding with them.”

Max raised his eyebrows. That was frank, indeed. “Does SwarmTQ know?”

“No. We’ll complete the testing, but the underlying loss of autonomy was always going to be a stumbling block. SwarmTQ focuses on the technology. The Navy’s focus has been equally split between the tech and its psychological impact. SwarmTQ presented the hive mind suits as simply enhancing existing group bonds in a unit.”

As a former Star Marine, Max knew the strength of those bonds. His brother-in-law Joe had created a business partnership on the basis of them; opening his bodyguard business with the newly retired, former Star Marine corporal Naomi Milligan.

Tolis would be aware of Max’s background. He’d know Max would understand both the spoken and unspoken experience of units who’d trained and fought together.

“I read the press release,” Max said. “SwarmTQ claims the suits both feed data to the individual units and receive it, and can override individual decision making to various agreed levels, but cannot initiate a suicide protocol. Everyone in the military is trained to put the needs of the unit above the individual, but compelling that action…”

“Is debatably unethical,” Tolis finished his sentence. “There has been a lot of discussion around that point. If people volunteer to wear a hive mind suit, does that satisfy the personal autonomy issue? In fact, the discussion is ongoing. But not immediately relevant. The psychological symptoms post-disengagement from the hive mind have decided the Navy against the buzz suits.”

Max hadn’t heard the term “buzz suits”. He noted it in a quick scrawl. If the name came from people who’d worn them, then it referenced a crucial aspect of the experience. In this case, it could mean an addictive high.

That Commander Tolis, a Naval Intelligence officer, used the term wouldn’t be a slip of the tongue. He was conveying information that he’d been forbidden to outright disclose.

Obviously, Max couldn’t act on unconfirmed supposition. However, the idea that SwarmTQ might be willing to develop and sell technology with an addictive edge was a thought to tuck away. In the course of his investigation, he’d tread warily in the SwarmTQ swamp.

“One other point that didn’t make it into my report,” Tolis said. “SwarmTQ hired a mercenary corporation to protect them whilst in the Saloon Sector. I followed it up independently. According to Constellation Mercenary Corps, Jonathon Neziri himself amended their contract. Originally, a Constellation Mercenary Corps ship was to follow them everywhere, although guards weren’t to be onboard the Hiveheart. However, as the Hiveheart approached the Navy’s testing range, Neziri sent the Constellation Mercs ship away.”

“Thanks. I’m grateful for all the help I can get.” Max paused to emphasize his next sentence. “I’m likely to have other priorities.”

“Anything I should know about?” Tolis was quick. Neziri’s death was a big deal. For Max to be preparing to put the investigation aside meant trouble.

Max thought of the long border with the Badstars that, in the event of a quarantine, the Navy would have to help patrol. “You’ll know it when you hear it.”

Tolis heard something in his voice. His own deepened and slowed, losing the easy patter of a conman—or spy. “It’s bad?”

“Hopefully, not as bad as it could be.”

Tolis whistled. “It’s bad.”

It was.

After the call ended, Max sat in the silence of his office for a few minutes, staring at nothing.

Tolis would be feeding Max’s hint of trouble up the chain of command for Naval Intelligence in the Saloon Sector.

Preparing people to act was all he could do at the moment. It was too late in the day to begin interviewing people on the Hiveheart, not when urgency had been lost by the delay of distance and SwarmTQ’s refusal to cooperate with Tolis for more than a preliminary recording of the murder scene.

Max unwillingly reached for his comms unit. He could, however, line up appointments for tomorrow. He’d start with Captain Shawn Morrison, unless Reid Shehu wanted top billing.

The co-founder of SwarmTQ did.

Max’s call to the Hiveheart was routed to Captain Morrison who apologized that Mr. Shehu was unavailable at the moment. He was dining.

“That’s fine, Captain Morrison. I wanted to introduce myself and arrange interview times for tomorrow. If you could also provide…” He detailed the information he required on the Hiveheart, its crew and guests. He already had some of it from registration records and other official paperwork.

The Hiveheart was a cruiser ranked vessel that carried the scientific and technical staff required to run the joint SwarmTQ and Navy testing of the hive mind suits. These essential staff were housed on the lower decks, while Shehu, Neziri and other executive staff occupied the luxurious upper decks.

Even with limiting his interviews to a select handful, tomorrow would be a long day.

Chapter 4

Thelma hid her smile behind her coffee mug as Max grumbled his way through breakfast. The moment of amusement was fleeting. Truth be told, she was no more keen to speak with Andrew Vuthaj, the governor of Mayda, than Max was to have her deal with that snake. However, contacting the governor directly was the most efficient method of acquiring the knowledge they needed about the state of affairs on Mayda. The trick would be getting Vuthaj to cooperate.

“Na, Da!” Silas slapped at the spoonful of oatmeal Max offered him.

Max wiped a splash from his chin.

Silas laughed.

Max tried for another spoonful. Patient persistence was a useful tactic.

With Vuthaj, Thelma intended to use blunt truth.

Vuthaj wasn’t a stupid man. He had to realize how limited his options were. If the doctors on Mayda couldn’t diagnose and cure the children’s sickness, their colony would end. The bandits might hold on longer, lurking in the Badstars, but only if the Federation didn’t enforce a quarantine. They weren’t self-sufficient, but depended on supplies, legally and illegally obtained, to survive.

In effect, the Badstars bandits’ society was a parasitic offshoot of the Federation. Sufficiently incentivize or rile the Federation and it could choose to go further than instituting a quarantine. It could actively hunt down the bandits.

That never went well.

The bandits were pirates by another name. The sole difference was that while pirates operated within the Federation, constantly on the move to avoid capture, the bandits were able to build actual bases in the Badstars. They were too small in number and the frontier too unimportant to the Federation for it to commit over many resources to acting against the bandits.

That calculation would change if the bandits brought a plague in from the Badstars. The whole Federation could be threatened.

The back of Thelma’s neck prickled with alarm. She breathed consciously through the panic. Hopefully, that wasn’t the situation they had with Mayda, but she would bludgeon its governor with the possibility. Vuthaj had to be brought to see that his sole option was cooperation with the Federation.

Ruth took Silas for a supervised playdate with Avgi, which left Thelma and Max to stare at each other across the oatmeal-plastered kitchen table. As soon as they left, Jesse would send in the cleaning robot.

“Good luck,” they said simultaneously.

Max had a high-profile murder to solve.

Thelma had a possibly sociopathic criminal mastermind to convert into an ally. She shuddered as she walked to her office. What an awful thought: an alliance with Vuthaj.

“Governor Vuthaj,” she said twenty three minutes later.

At least he’d accepted her call. She didn’t want to deal with him, but she was under no illusions: he had no reason to deal with her, either. She lacked the authority to promise him anything regarding the Federation’s future actions.

“Mrs. Smith.” Vuthaj had accepted an audio-visual comms call. He sat in a modest office with wood paneled walls and papers stacked in two old-fashioned trays on his desk. Paper was one means of preventing people in distant locations eavesdropping on your communications. The man, himself, dominated the space. He was medium height and lean; dark hair buzzed short, and his equally dark eyes alert and shrewd. Cold. There was no amiability in his smile.

Thelma didn’t bother smiling. “We have a problem.”

“I didn’t realize you and me were a ‘we’.” He gestured between the screen and himself.

Despite the distance between them, with the Homestead traveling away from the Badstars and him deep inside that hazardous region, there was very little lag-time in their communication; a fact Vuthaj would notice.

Thelma didn’t intend to enlighten him as to how Harry and Reynard had installed their own relay stations inside the Badstars two and more years ago. “Children are sick on Mayda. How many have died?”

His dark gaze remained steady. “Children get sick. Experience with your own son must have taught you this fact.”

As much as she hated Vuthaj even mentioning Silas, his awareness of the fact that anything that threatened children in the Saloon Sector would be personal for her would help her position her argument, and justify to him why she was intervening.

“It has,” she answered Vuthaj. “It’s also taught me how irrational I can be regarding my son’s welfare. It’s a trait most parents share, and Governor, it could be the ruin of Mayda.” She pursued her argument relentlessly. “When news of your troubles gets out, very few people will be willing to help you. And by ‘you’ I mean the colony of Mayda. The bandits, those with their own ships, will scatter for their own survival, and they’ll be hunted down and exterminated.”

Vuthaj wasn’t a person to flinch at language like “exterminated”. “Are you claiming you can prevent this imagined calamity?”

“I would be a voice inside the Federation. Independent, but not ostracized.” After a night’s consideration, she’d realized that this was what she could offer Vuthaj, and what he might be smart enough to accept. “Do you have any idea what is making the children sick?”

He could continue dancing around the issue or recognize his opportunity to negotiate the terms of her assistance, and through her, possible help from the Federation. As much as the bandits mistrusted authority, they had to realize they needed help.

“No,” Vuthaj said. “We have eliminated several possible causes.”

Beneath her desk, Thelma dug the nails of her left hand into her thigh to try and suppress any sign of her relief. No matter how difficult negotiating with Vuthaj might be, getting him to the table was the hardest step. “You need better diagnostic equipment. Reynard, one of my AI friends, is manufacturing it as he travels to Mayda.”

“We need more than diagnostic equipment.”

“And there is the time lost to travel,” Thelma said, carefully sympathetic. “Reynard isn’t the sole AI willing to help me help Mayda. The more information you can provide me regarding your colony’s situation, the greater the chance of a remote diagnosis.”

Lucia would analyze everything, but Thelma wasn’t giving Vuthaj names or outright promises.

“Of course you want to learn about Mayda,” its governor said. “And about the bandits and how the Federation can control us.”

“Speaking personally, I want to save the children. The children of Mayda and, if this is contagious, the children of the Saloon Sector and beyond. The Saloon Sector has always tolerated the bandits. The Badstars has given those who couldn’t hack even the lighter regulation of frontier life somewhere to escape to. That tolerance will evaporate in a hot second when people realize your silence has jeopardized their children.”

“I’m aware,” Vuthaj said. “We have thirty thousand children aged sixteen or under on Mayda.”

She’d thought it was twenty thousand. Either Vuthaj was lying, or Mayda had purposely misled people’s perception of the colony’s growth for years.

“You are not a doctor, Mrs. Smith. If I provide you with the data we have on the children’s condition, you will pass it to others. They will pass it to others. The Federation will have proof of a serious health emergency in the Badstars and they will quarantine us.”

“I expect they will,” Thelma said. “The border to the Badstars will close.”

“It will still leak,” he said dismissively. “It is a long border. However, trade, legal and illegal, in the Saloon Sector will become difficult. You are correct that people will panic about their own children’s fate, and there will be hatred toward bandits. If I give you our data, there is no guarantee that the children’s condition will be diagnosed and cured swiftly or at all. Meantime, you have the evidence to shut us down. We are not self-sufficient. If our smuggling routes are disrupted, there will be more suffering piled upon this sickness.”

His point was valid and well made.

He was negotiating from a point of weakness—leader of a criminal outpost, its children sick—but he was twisting that vulnerability into an argument of compassion. With Thelma, that might work. She felt sorry for the people of Mayda who were trying to build an honest, law-abiding society. But with others in the Federation, Mayda’s destruction would be an appealing method of striking at the bandits’ soft underbelly.

“You need the data,” Vuthaj said. “Your Federation can come and take it by force, but time is your enemy there. Best speed, it’ll be five months to reach us.”

Reynard would only take eleven weeks to reach Mayda. That was the startling difference in speed between his newest spaceship and organically-crewed ships.

Vuthaj continued confidently. “Plus, the bandits won’t take kindly to an invasion of their territory. I’m not saying they’ll outright attack, although some will. Most are vengeful survivors. They will leave traps in among the natural hazards of the Badstars. Wresting data from us by force will be costly in time, resources and lives. And you want that data. You want to know if your son is at risk and how he might be protected.”

“What do you want, Vuthaj?”

“Guaranteed supplies. Food, medicine, essentials.”

Thelma frowned. She’d anticipated Mayda would require medical support. But a supply line that included food suggested a failing colony. “You can’t feed yourselves?”

“In normal circumstances, we can. In a situation where an unknown sickness is striking down children and might shift to strike down working age adults, we don’t have the stores to ride that out. I also recognize that the Federation can’t offer bandits an amnesty. This leaves bandits with two options for survival.

“Those who run the border will fall foul of the quarantine. Your husband, Mrs. Smith, is a capable man. Once a quarantine is imposed, bandits who attempt to breach it will die in a fight against superior forces or be captured and imprisoned. Prudent bandit captains will pull back. They won’t challenge the quarantine. Which means their lone ongoing source of supplies will be Mayda. Many are citizens with a right to reside here, even if I order their ships not to be resupplied.”

Vuthaj summed up his position. “I have the data you want. I need a guaranteed supply line, otherwise I’m gifting you the data while we die anyway.”

Some form of the colony was likely to survive on Mayda, unless Vuthaj’s worst fears were met and the sickness extended to affect adults. But a desperate, shrunken colony of survivors would doubtlessly lose the law-abiding, safe haven principles that had made Mayda a settlement of hope. It would lack the strength to oppose outside negative forces.

“I can’t guarantee a supply line,” Thelma said slowly. “But I can advocate for it. Strongly.”

“I’ll send you a video. Show it to those who have the authority to save or condemn our children.” Vuthaj ended the comms link. Five seconds later a message arrived.

Thelma opened the video.

A child had been filmed convulsing on a street in Mayda. His drumming feet had kicked aside fallen leaves and squishy purple flowers. The harsh sound of choking competed with a woman’s panicked prayers.

“Dear God.”

A rash like a red raccoon’s mask surrounded the child’s eyes.

Thelma’s fingers were too clumsy to manipulate the screen. “Jesse, turn it off.” The last frozen image vanished. “Send it to Lucia, please.” She leaned forward, elbows on the table, head in her hands; covering her face and feeling her stomach tremble with sobs that never emerged.

The video had made the danger vividly real.

“Call Aubree.” They had to act, now.

Max intended to close the investigation into Jonathon Neziri’s death as fast as possible. Hopefully, even before he’d claimed the body for autopsy. As bad as the fall-out of the murder might be if the bunyaphi were involved, and not merely framed, the threat from the Badstars was worse.

If Saloon Sector citizens decided their children’s lives were at risk due to the Badstars bandits, then the frontier’s simmering tensions could erupt.

Max never underestimated the potential for chaos that lurked in his territory. Prosperity papered over divisions. However, given the right spark, competing interests would be at each other’s throats. Unleash violence, along the lines of vigilantism, and the violence spread.

Max’s first scheduled comms call of the morning opened to show Reid Shehu seated at a wide desk. Two other men sat to one side. Like his former partner, Jonathon Neziri, Shehu was in his fifties. Thanks to rejuvenation treatments, he appeared half that age. The dark red of his leather chair complemented the blackness of his hair. His tailored pale pink shirt emphasized rather than disguised the result of his time in the gym. “Sheriff Smith.”

“Mr. Shehu, good morning. Might we speak privately?”

Shehu glanced sideways at the two men. “Cody Bardhyl is my legal counsel. He was here to handle the Navy. Got more than he anticipated. And this is Gabriel Asllan, VP for Development. He worked closely with Jonathon.”

Max had already matched their faces to names from his research last night.

“We want to help, Sheriff,” Shehu said. “Jonathon’s death has hurt us. He was our friend as well as my business partner.” Shehu staked a superior claim to the victim.

Max stayed silent. How the surviving chief of SwarmTQ directed the meeting would be interesting in itself.

Shehu had already demonstrated a disinclination for privacy. Whether Bardhyl and Asllan were meant as protection or as an audience for Shehu’s performance would reveal itself.

“I’d like to apologize,” Shehu said. “I’m afraid that Commander Tolis caught me at a raw moment. Jonathon and I were partners for over thirty years. We had our ups and downs. Fought like brothers,” he suddenly confided, leaning forward.

Shehu shook his head in an attempt at an aw-shucks manner. The good ole boy approach didn’t sit well with his fashionably groomed appearance or the sleekness of his office on the Hiveheart. “Jonathon’s death has hit me hard. I learned my lesson, though. I can’t show it. People expect their leaders to be strong. When I vented to my executives, they contacted our legal department. I don’t blame you, Cody. But next thing I know, Sheriff, they’re obstructing your investigation into Jonathon’s death. I want justice for him. I need it.”

Shehu breathed heavily. “SwarmTQ is the family Jonathon left behind. Not those harpies, his exes. We are the ones who mourn him and will carry on his legacy.” He stopped and stared expectantly at Max.

As apologies went, it was inadequate. Shehu hadn’t volunteered the Hiveheart to rendezvous with the Homestead or, better yet from Max’s perspective, backtrack on the legal blitz and cooperate with the Navy’s involvement.

“Grief is difficult,” Max said neutrally.

Shehu laced his fingers together on the desk in front of him. The aw-shucks manner vanished. His gaze at the camera was direct to the point of aggression. “I’m afraid that in reassuring our people of SwarmTQ’s strength, I overdid the standing our ground element. And our legal department certainly did. To reiterate, I’m glad I had this chance to apologize face-to-face. It wasn’t personal. Nor is the fact that I’ve gone over your head.”

Max contemplated the man who’d stated he was grieving.

Shehu was smug. He enjoyed having power, and exercising it. Notwithstanding the repeated apology, his performance wasn’t conciliatory. It was anticipatory.

Max was investigating a murder, and one of the chief suspects—whether Shehu considered himself a suspect or not—was savoring the opportunity to patronize and manipulate him. Because this was a manipulative ploy. Shehu had a plan.

In the next instant, he laid it out. “I’ve spoken with Galactic Justice agent Edgar Ottawa. Once you’ve delivered Jonathon’s body to him, Ottawa will take charge of the investigation.” Shehu smirked. “He doesn’t seem too keen on you, Sheriff Smith, so I suggest you dot your i’s and cross your t’s in the paperwork you hand over.”

Everyone grieved in different ways. This was not grief.

“Thanks for the advice. In the interests of dotting my i’s and crossing my t’s, I have a few questions to ask you.”

Shehu glowered. He wasn’t accustomed to being mocked to his face. Or perhaps he wasn’t accustomed to anyone being unaffected by his orders. “Go ahead.”

Max churned through the interviews. As expected for a middle of the night murder in the bedroom of a man who slept alone, no one had seen or heard anything. Unsurprisingly, given they were stuck on the Hiveheart with their overbearing boss, they all also claimed that there were no unusual stresses or strains. Max didn’t push any questions about the hive mind suits, even if he was curious whether anyone in SwarmTQ had realized the Navy didn’t intend to pursue them.

After he finished talking with the executives and key Hiveheart officers, Max messaged Owen.

Edgar “The Otter” Ottawa, who’d replaced Aubree as Galactic Justice’s agent on Zephyr, was not authorized to carry out an interstellar investigation. His authority was planet-based. Of course, as Aubree had before him, he tracked events beyond it. But interfering in an interstellar sheriff case would only get him slapped. Metaphorically, speaking. Although a fair number of people would line up to take a swing at the Otter if it was permitted.

Max asked Owen to look into Shehu’s confidence that Edgar would take over the case.

“Pffft. It’d never happen. But I’ll sniff around.” As the office manager for the Sheriff’s Office on the Zephyr spacedock, Owen had his own methods of acquiring information. Sometimes he could even be subtle. “If the Otter is trying to move into our space, he’ll get his nose nipped.”

Personal assistants were goldmines of information, if Max could convince them to open up. Their jobs depended on them noticing the changing ebbs and flows of business matters and personal relationships. The same was true for their bosses, but executives didn’t like to admit their shaky grip on power.

Erin Zaharia and Susannah Clark were careful, circumspect. They had nothing to gain by sharing information with him.

However, Alyssa Pernn was different.

For the first two, SwarmTQ remained a glittering success even with the murder of one of its co-founders. The two personal assistants were determined to tie their futures to it.

The third was different.

Alyssa Pernn sat with a confident swish of her skirt, tucking it beneath her, crossing her legs at the ankles. She wasn’t using sex as a weapon or distraction. She met Max’s gaze steadily through the screen, with the cool resolution of someone who’d arrived at the interview with her own purpose.

Captain Morrison had set aside a stateroom for the comms interviews.

Whatever she said, SwarmTQ would undoubtedly record it. While that suspicion had been enough to limit Erin Zaharia, who had been Neziri’s PA, to platitudes and sobs, Alyssa seemed to have her own agenda.

“I’ve been thinking about Mr. Neziri’s murder in the context of the last couple of years. I’ve been with SwarmTQ five years. Long enough to know how things were and how they’ve changed.”

Alyssa stared directly at the screen, confident that she had Max’s full attention. “I’ve submitted my resignation letter. I’ve been studying law and will be returning to Serene to take up a position with my aunt’s firm. Straight out of high school, I indulged an idealistic streak. These days I’ve learned the advantages of nepotism.”

She recrossed her legs. “Not that I regret my time with SwarmTQ. I learned a lot. Some executives forget that their PA is an independent person. Consequently, they don’t bother to hide their secrets or their secret selves.” Alyssa was PA to Gabriel Asllan, the VP for Development. “Mostly that’s okay because they’re boring.”

Ouch. Despite himself, Max was amused.

“Mr. Neziri respected Erin. He told her what he wanted done and they had these set patterns, so she always did things certain ways. It took me a while with Gabriel,” her executive, “to realize that actually those agreed ways of doing things gave Erin more independence. She didn’t have to guess what Mr. Neziri wanted.”

Alyssa smoothed her skirt. “If you think of those set patterns as rules, Mr. Neziri started changing them about two years ago. He shook things up when he started talking about succession planning. Erin’s workload lessened, so she didn’t really care. I don’t know if she even noticed. But Mr. Neziri changed things for other people. It was like he was testing them and the organization.”

“Was Mr. Shehu involved in the succession planning?”

A slight smile curved her mouth, while her eyes narrowed. “SwarmTQ is everything to Mr. Shehu. He was involved in the succession planning. What I’m not sure of is whether Mr. Neziri realized how much their goals differed. He was looking for who could step up and handle ongoing and surprise challenges, and how the company as a whole responded to events. Mr. Shehu, he likes people who look to him for guidance.”

She leaned forward. “The Hiveheart operates exactly as Mr. Shehu wants SwarmTQ to. Its captain takes orders from him.”

In summary, Neziri was the ideas person and Shehu the one who got things done. But the lines blurred. That their partnership had endured and sustained an enterprise as successful as SwarmTQ meant there must have been some give-and-take in their relationship. Or shared ambition outweighed indulging their egos in clashes between themselves.

Just how oblivious might they have been to one another’s personal goals?

Alyssa straightened her already straight spine. “Personally, I think he’d given up on all of them. No matter what they’d hoped, or he’d initially planned, Mr. Neziri wasn’t going to promote any of them. Yes-men can’t lead.”

No one else had mentioned succession planning. Neziri had been young enough to remain in his role for decades. The idea that he might be considering moving on hadn’t been raised by anyone other than Alyssa, but it might explain the heightened tensions between the executives. In their interviews they’d been very focused on emphasizing their individual importance, especially in relation to one another.

Would someone kill for career advancement? It wasn’t a typical employment strategy.

But someone might kill to protect what they had. If Neziri had been paying closer than normal attention to his potential successors, what might he have discovered?

People protected what they considered theirs. When analyzing the motivation for a crime, people often talked of the profit motive or what the perpetrator hoped to gain from an illegal act.

What Max had learned in his years as a sheriff was that the most determined criminals reframed whatever they sought to acquire as already theirs. At that point, in taking possession of it, they fought with the instinctual viciousness or heightened risk-taking of someone protecting their property.

In the early stages of a murder investigation, motivation was less reliable than determining method and opportunity.

Max stood and stretched hugely. Alone in his office, he didn’t bother smothering the gigantic yawn that gaped his mouth wide enough for his jaw to click. He was three steps from the doorway and intent on catching up with Thelma when his personal comms unit chimed.

Commander Tolis.

Max switched back from personal to professional mode.

Tolis had a piece of interesting information to share. “Constellation Mercenary Corps, the group contracted to protect SwarmTQ’s interests in the Saloon Sector, has a courier on its way to the Hiveheart. Its direct route crossed the Navy exclusion zone for the testing range, so we could ask the purpose of their journey. That they told us straight out suggests some disgruntlement with SwarmTQ or its executives. The courier is to collect Shehu from the Hiveheart and deliver him to the Reclamation Sector ASAP.” Tolis hesitated. “I’ve been expecting him to run.”

Max propped a shoulder against the doorframe. “Do you think Shehu’s guilty?”

“Of murdering his partner?” Tolis hummed. “I can’t read the guy. He’s a classic sociopath. If he had a reason to kill Neziri and thought he could get away with it, I reckon he would. But I didn’t dig up a motive.”

“No,” Max agreed slowly. He hadn’t come across one in his interviews, either.

Even allowing for the post-death halo effect burnishing his memory, Neziri had been well-respected by his employees. He’d been the innovator. Shehu had balanced him by solving practical details. Their executives handled running the corporation.

It had surprised Max how they’d appeared to genuinely respect Shehu.

He hadn’t unearthed any hint of significant tension between the two partners. Even their joint presence on the Hiveheart for the testing of the hive mind suits seemed generally accepted as a normal-for-them shared passion for the innovative aspect of SwarmTQ’s operations.

“I figure Shehu’s getting clear of the mess,” Tolis said. “As the surviving partner, he’ll be needed back in the core worlds. The Reclamation Sector will be a brief stop as he transfers to an equally fast, more luxurious vessel.”

Max contemplated the possibilities of Shehu’s imminent departure. “Do you think with him gone, the Hiveheart might cooperate and meet me?”

Even a couple of days shaved off the time involved in Max having to collect Neziri’s body might help in terms of responding to and containing the crisis in the Badstars and on the border.

“Wishful thinking,” Tolis said crisply. “Whatever his reason for delaying and hindering the investigation into his partner’s death, I don’t think Shehu’s departure will change that. He doesn’t want the Navy involved, and that includes keeping the Hiveheart out of the testing range and our jurisdiction.”

“Any guesses as to why he’s so committed to keeping you out?”

“Other than being a paranoid pain in the posterior? Nope. Although to be fair to Shehu, perception is as important as reality in business. If his shareholders thought we, the Navy, had had free rein in examining his ship, there might be hiccups in the market. There is a lot of confidential information in the working decks of that cruiser.”

“Whereas a sheriff sniffing around is forgivable?”

Tolis laughed. “As long as no one recognizes your name and connection to the Hwicce corporate empire.”

Hwicce was the corporation Max’s grandfather had founded. In market terms, it was a whale to SwarmTQ’s minnow.

Max abandoned his office and found Thelma next door, playing with Silas.

“Da!” He was in her lap, slapping at her desk, while she sung a drumming song. At the sight of Max, Silas wriggled and hitched himself up onto the desk to crawl across to his dad.

Max fielded him easily.

“Jesse, will you babysit for a few minutes?” Thelma asked.

Observing the sadness in her eyes, Max asked no questions.

Silas’s favorite nanny robot rolled in. The speed of its arrival meant Jesse had anticipated Thelma wanting to talk without Silas’s presence. “We’ll go find Harry.” Jesse bribed Silas with one of his favorite people and, fickle child, he forgot his parents to embark on a new adventure.

Thelma called up a video of a convulsing child. “Vuthaj was prepared for the meeting. Perhaps not with me, but prepared to open negotiations with the Federation. He sent this, as well as information on the children’s sickness. Enough that the Federation can’t afford to ignore the problem. Aubree is pushing the we’ve-got-trouble button as we speak.”

Chapter 5

Aubree called well after dinner, while Max was organizing his investigation notes and Thelma sat near him in his office, staring at nothing. Silas was asleep in the nursery with Jesse monitoring him.

Aubree apologized that she’d be eating as she talked. The conversation was audio only. “It was like herding cats, but the crucial stakeholders are engaged. We’re a taskforce. Saving Children At Our Borders.” As taskforce names went, it was inoffensive.

“No one wants to deal with Vuthaj.” Aubree bit into something crunchy, chewed and swallowed. “Understandably. Thelma, I’ve created a position for you in the taskforce. Community representative.”

“Officially representing the Saloon Sector, and unofficially the bandits?” Thelma asked sardonically.

Max was proud of her. She saw through obfuscation to the truth, and she didn’t flinch from facing it, or bearing its weight.

“Exactly,” Aubree said. “Although not the bandits. The children, which means Mayda.”

Thelma exhaled. “That I can do.”

“The Federal Health Union has studied the video and other information Vuthaj gave you. An AI, Lucia, weighed in with advice. The Federal Health Union director seemed undecided whether to be thrilled or annoyed at Lucia volunteering her expertise. Even with her assistance, they don’t have a diagnosis.”

Max and Thelma shared a rueful, resigned look. The lack of a diagnosis wasn’t news. If Lucia had answers, she’d have shared them with Harry. All the AIs knew how worried Ruth was for Silas, and the other children.

The scratch of a fork against china sounded over the comms unit. “Thelma, you said that Reynard is traveling to Mayda with diagnostic equipment?”

“He’s manufacturing it during the journey. Lucia is advising him.”

“Good. The bandits may accept an AI. The Federal Health Union is sending their Reclamation Sector Threat Response Unit. It’s led by Vanessa Fraser, who will also head the taskforce.” Frustration sharpened Aubree’s voice. “Federal Health have no idea how to act in the Saloon Sector. Here in the Reclamation Sector, they’re certain of the superiority of their knowledge. Out on the frontier, and worse, in the Badstars, stripped of the security of polite society, their mix of arrogance and ignorance will make them easy targets. I’ll try to manage them, but if Vuthaj attempts an end run around both of us to Vanessa Fraser, who knows what she’ll do?”

“Help or explode things?” Max asked bluntly.

Aubree sighed. “Her boss, at any rate, is the type willing to take a nuclear option. I’ve dealt with him before. At minimum, he’d cut off all aid to the bandits if they don’t follow the Federal Health Union’s instructions. Vuthaj isn’t as smart as he thinks he is. With this mess, he could miscalculate badly. He’s a sociopath. Sometimes they make the best kind of administrators, as long as you build a system in which his goals align with the society’s. However, in a highly emotive situation, he mightn’t see half the issues.”

Like Reynard, Max thought, but didn’t say. Reynard had Harry to intervene and puncture his obliviousness. And Reynard wasn’t a sociopath. The AI cared for people. Helping to raise Ruth had even encouraged Reynard to care for more than just a select few. There had been a time when Harry had instituted a rule for Reynard: he had to have as many friends as tentacles; that is, eight. These days Reynard communicated with more than eight people and, as evidenced by his journey to Mayda, even cared about the fate of strangers.

“Thelma, I’m sending you a list of what the Federal Health Union is prepared to offer the bandits in terms of assistance. That’s the carrot. The stick is all the worst case consequences you can think of, and there are too many of those.”

“Quarantine,” Thelma said.

There was the rattle of a teaspoon, silence, then another sigh from Aubree. “Quarantining the Badstars is non-negotiable. To make it stick, people have to know why. Too many people have been adventuring over there, surveying and exploring. So, we, the taskforce, will be announcing a sometimes fatal illness, cause unknown, originating in the Badstars, and affecting children as the reason for quarantining the Badstars. No ships will be allowed out of the Federation and into the Badstars unless they have official permission, as with Reynard. However, we won’t be wasting our resources hunting them down. By which I mean we won’t be imposing an exclusion zone prior to the actual border. I’m certainly not losing anyone to chasing the bandits inside the Badstars. The sheriffs, Customs and Navy will police the actual border. Anyone crossing from the Badstars into the Federation must be stopped.”

Aubree paused. “Cayor will be our point of contact with the Navy and Customs.” Zach Cayor was another Saloon Sector sheriff, one whose territory also bordered the Badstars.

Max’s territory, however, was the one on a direct path from the Reclamation Sector and Tornado to the Badstars. As much as the bandits tried to avoid detection, fuel was also part of their route calculations. Life was lived on the edge in the Badstars. The bandits simply couldn’t afford to, in Aubree’s terminology, waste resources.

“Piracy will increase,” Max said.

“Something you’ll need to discuss with your deputy,” Aubree replied. “Along with a rise in vigilantism.” Nothing in this discussion was easy, and the weight of the responsibility wore on them all. By nature and by training, they could see the trouble coming. “Even if Federal Health quickly finds a non-contagious cause of disease for the children of Mayda and cures it, the bandits’ lives will never go back to what they were. People won’t forget or forgive that they kept a threat to the children of the Saloon Sector secret.”

Beside Max, Thelma nodded. Trust once lost was difficult to rebuild.

Max had never trusted the bandits. They were on opposite sides of the justice system. But he had believed in their intent to build Mayda as a stable society. Keeping secrets about children’s sickness and death to save their banditry and smuggling businesses had exploded that hope. “Tornado will ban them.”

“They will,” Aubree agreed. “The bandits will be lucky if that’s all they do if it turns out that the threat to children is contagious.”

Thelma gripped his hand and he squeezed hers reassuringly.

If the mysterious condition swept from the Badstars to infect the children of the Saloon Sector, the mercenaries of Tornado wouldn’t just cease to do covert business with the bandits. They’d wipe their ships out of space.

And Max might be tempted to join them.

He brought up another issue; less significant, but still potentially problematical. “I spoke with Shehu.”

“Shoe?” Aubree mumbled. “Sorry.” She swallowed. “Chocolate cake. I’ve earned it.”

“Shehu. Reid Shehu. Neziri’s co-founder. Shehu informed me Edgar Ottawa will be taking over the murder investigation into Neziri’s death.”

Aubree muttered a curse. If any gods heard her wishes, Ottawa’s nose would relocate somewhere dark, but still on, or in, his body. Somewhere impossible, unless he cut his nose off first. “I’ll find out what the Otter’s playing at. Max, do you have any idea who did this?”

“Idea? Yes. Proof? No. I need to get the bunyaphi venom analyzed.”

“Which Ruth could do.” Aubree was familiar with Ruth’s boundless curiosity and the way the other AIs indulged the youngest by teaching her how to acquire the knowledge she wanted. Like Reynard, Ruth could manufacture the diagnostic equipment required.

Jesse could, too.

The sticking point was, as Aubree went on to say, that the evidence had to stand up in court. In other words, although the diagnostic equipment could be manufactured and employed on the Homestead, to ensure a conviction at the end of the investigation, Max had to wait till a medical examiner took possession of Neziri’s body and ran the tests.

Aubree growled, an actual feminine grrr of annoyance, but also of decision. “Max, you, on the border, engaging with the bandits, are far more useful than the Homestead acting as a glorified hearse for Neziri’s body. SwarmTQ’s lawyers can go drown themselves. A potential plague, the severity of the risk demonstrated by quarantining the Badstars, opens up some emergency measures. The Navy volunteered its assistance in the Neziri murder investigation. I’ll have them collect Neziri’s body and fast-track the autopsy. Having potential trouble involving the bunyaphi hanging over our heads helps no one. I’ll authorize the Navy’s assistance, but you remain in charge of the investigation even as you head for the border.”

“Thanks.” Max wasn’t being facetious. If he could be spared the trip to the Navy’s testing range and the hazen field beyond it, the Homestead ought to be able to make it to the border in just over two weeks.

“Priorities change,” Aubree said flatly. “But the bunyaphi angle remains a concern.”

“Noted.”

“To wrap up, Vanessa Fraser says it will take Federal Health’s Threat Response team eight days to mobilize. Then they have to travel from the Reclamation Sector. Their ships aren’t built for speed. When we get more information from Vuthaj or someone on Mayda, it may be that we send an advance team, with a hospital ship or ships to follow. Thelma, you can promise Vuthaj that level of assistance,” she added. “The details are in the notes Brenda is sending you.”

“All right. I’ll look through them.”

Aubree yawned and apologized. “Vanessa, me and someone from Customs and the Navy will announce the quarantine, and consequently, the health threat, at nine, tomorrow morning. As soon as our announcement ends—we’ll be broadcasting live from here in the Reclamation Sector—Thelma, I want you to call Vuthaj. I’m forwarding the additional data requested by Federal Health.”

She ended the call before they could ask questions or voice concerns.

Max watched Thelma. “You’re on the taskforce. In the middle of it.”

“As soon as I contacted Vuthaj, I put myself there.” She stood. “Come on. Come to bed.”

News of Jonathon Neziri’s death officially broke two hours before the quarantine announcement.

While SwarmTQ’s lawyers bickered with everyone and Jonathon Neziri’s ex-wives gave “exclusive” interviews to any media who’d talk to them, Max finished his own interviews.

In the midst of her own chaos around the Mayda public health crisis, Aubree managed to leave a message for Max.

She’d spoken with Edgar Ottawa’s boss. Like Aubree, as Chief for the Interstellar Sheriff Service in both the Saloon and Reclamation Sectors, Edgar’s immediate superior resided in the Reclamation Sector. In fact, his office was two levels below Aubree’s.

“Galactic Justice is investigating SwarmTQ,” her message said. “A vague non-explanation of unaccounted for money and resources as prompting a discreet investigation. The partnership with the Navy to test the hive mind suits probably contributed to the approval to look into them. Apparently, SwarmTQ is hard to track. The murder investigation is an ‘in’ and the Otter took it, luring Shehu into thinking Galactic Justice would be less into stomping over everything than you. Normally, I’d fight the turf war and keep the case, but the Mayda mess has priority. Keep an eye on things with SwarmTQ, but I’m surrendering the murder investigation to Edgar. Legalities can be covered by making him a deputy for the duration of the case.”

She put painfully fake enthusiasm into her voice. “Congrats, Max. You now have two deputies.” The false energy faded. “Send Edgar everything you’ve got, including the fact that a Navy medical examiner is taking responsibility for the autopsy.”

Max scrubbed his face. He’d have to maintain oversight of the investigation. Legally, Ottawa might require the fig leaf of deputization, but the Galactic Justice agent would act independently. Worse, he’d resent Max’s continued involvement in the case.

The bunyaphi weren’t guilty. Max doubted they were even peripherally involved in Neziri’s murder, other than as a convenient scapegoat and distraction.

In better news, being freed of taking the lead on the Neziri case meant Max could concentrate on the Mayda crisis. Supporting Thelma and contributing to Cayor’s organization of the border patrol were important, but Max also wanted to direct some time to an element of the complicated situation that they’d been forced to overlook. Namely, what Helen’s mom, Medusa, was up to and literally where she was. Having Medusa potentially roaming his territory on a revenge mission sent chills down Max’s spine.

Thelma wanted a hot shower to scrub off the dirty feeling of dealing with Vuthaj—and their conversation was barely three minutes old. The man was too darned satisfied with the announcement of a Badstars quarantine. It reminded her that while she wanted to help people, Vuthaj, ultimately, only ever helped himself.

She wasn’t quite cynical enough to suspect that he’d created the children’s sickness. The man had been in second-in-command of a large and successful criminal organization for six years, followed by five years unchallenged as Mayda’s governor. His survival instincts were strong enough that he wouldn’t double-cross bandits as dangerous as Medusa.

Although if he had, Thelma ventured into private musing, well, she wouldn’t warn him that Medusa was seeking vengeance.

She laid out the deal the Federation taskforce was offering. “As long as the bandits adhere to the quarantine and stay inside the Badstars, the Navy will deliver sufficient supplies to sustain Mayda and the roaming bandits.”

The bandits would hate being dependent on the Federation’s charity.

“Good,” Vuthaj said. “The Navy is a good choice. I couldn’t guarantee that fools mightn’t otherwise attack a convoy.”

Convoy? Vuthaj had grand hopes.

Then again, if the Federal Health Union sent in a research team, their ship might end up as part of a convoy.

“Reynard is already on his way to Mayda with diagnostic equipment. Pass on a warning. If any of the bandit ships fire at Reynard, he’ll defend himself. No, actually, I’ll broadcast the purpose of Reynard’s journey into the Badstars. Then if a rogue ship goes after Reynard, there’s less chance of blowback from the other bandit captains when he disables it.” Not that Reynard being attacked was a genuine risk until Mayda. His spaceship’s stealth capability was too great.

“Your choice,” Vuthaj said. “As a show of commitment, I’ll assign a Mayda doctor to liaise directly with the Federal Health Union.”

Thelma refrained from thanking him for the small concession. Whichever doctor Vuthaj appointed would have orders to report to him whatever they learned about the Federal Health Union’s thinking and prospective actions.

Everyone wanted information. More than money, it was the lifeblood of enterprise. Which meant that Vuthaj would refuse her next request, but she’d keep on asking.

Reynard was eleven weeks away from Mayda. That meant that for eleven weeks they’d lack new technological diagnostic insight into the children’s condition. However, while Mayda lacked medical equipment, there were some areas where, as bandits, they’d have invested in technology beyond the basic: like a planetary monitoring system. Mayda’s colonists would have focused it outward to protect them from anyone from the Navy to a bandit captain with a grudge. However, such systems tracked all sorts of additional data, from weather to geological changes. Thelma couldn’t image a control freak like Vuthaj switching off the system’s data collection. She just had to convince him to share its results.

Obviously, Mayda would be sensitive about revealing too much of themselves to the Federation, both to protect themselves and because they didn’t want anyone getting ideas of taking what they had. Mayda was a good habitable planet—unless the children’s condition was due to some untreatable, ineradicable local contagion.

Thelma wanted the data, any data, to run it through Lon’s analytical engine. Although the infected children were the logical place to start diagnosing their condition, if the trigger turned out to be environmental, the analytical engine might be able to identify it. At minimum, it could list changes for investigation on-planet. She might be able to sell Vuthaj on that point. The citizens of Mayda had to be going crazy with the need to do something to protect their children.

Vuthaj refused.

Thelma retreated to Silas’s nursery. One whole wall was a mural of a fantasy landscape. She leaned against the image of a tree with a winding staircase peopled with elves and goblins and strung with lights.

Listening to her son’s breathing had never been so reassuring. Or as worrying.

How many children were sick and suffering, possibly dying, while she argued with Vuthaj?

Silas woke up, feet kicking, and smiled at her.

Tears sprang into her eyes and she rubbed them away. A diaper change was a normal activity that acquired new significance. Her baby was healthy. Safe. Dodging his kicks was amusing not annoying. She blew a raspberry against his tummy and he giggled.

“Da!”

Max had silently joined them in the nursery. He tickled Silas’s left foot and caught the uncoordinated kick from his right one.

With him watching over Silas, Thelma disposed of the diaper.

“I spoke to Ottawa.” Max picked up Silas. “Juice, kicker?”

Silas babbled enthusiastically.

Max produced a juice pouch from a pocket.

“And?” Thelma prompted. Contact with Edgar “The Otter” Ottawa seldom resulted in good news.

“He’ll let me know if the financial irregularities he’s investigating end up linked to Neziri’s murder. Because we don’t want Galactic Justice’s long-running criminal investigation ruined by a sheriff’s murder case.” Sarcasm dripped from his words.

“What is it the Otter’s chasing?” Thelma mused. “Simple fraud wouldn’t be enough for him to push himself into Neziri’s murder investigation. Well, it might be,” she corrected herself. “If Ottawa got some wild idea. But his bosses wouldn’t back him for simple fraud. They’re following the money trail to something more sinister.”

Max wiped Silas’s juice-sticky mouth. “And I have no idea what.”

Thelma fed and bathed Silas early before sitting him down in the center of the living room to play. As well as being the gathering place for friends and family onboard the Homestead, it was fitted out for virtual meetings. Which really meant it was a place for people to gather even when they were far apart.

It was here that Silas “played” with his cousins. Hugo and Vivian’s daughter, Tree (real name Patrice), loved to read him stories. Her big brother, Danton, could be coaxed to sing an occasional song, complete with dance moves, for Silas after Danton had finished one of his long science-based conversations with Reynard. To everyone’s surprise, Reynard had become a bit of a mentor to the bright teenager.

In the kitchen, Thelma threw together a fast, healthy meal for her and Max. Keeping busy kept irrational terrors from creeping into her mind.

Max was safe.

Silas was safe.

They would get through this. It was the unexpectedness of this unknown illness that had her unsettled. Fate had given her a little nudge and rocked her off balance. The reminder that there were things in life that you couldn’t protect those you loved from was never welcome.

An ancient quotation had been haunting her and she’d looked it up before she left her office. Long ago, on Earth, a politician and philosopher had written, “He that hath wife and children hath given hostages to fortune…”

Love for those in your care could lead you to flinch from what had to be done.

She glanced over to where Silas sat absorbed in a children’s cartoon. What would she do if he was ever directly threatened?

Max entered the kitchen and put a hand at her waist, joining her in watching their happily oblivious son.

They could keep their child safe, but other parents didn’t have that confidence.

Max kissed her temple. “Hugo and Vivian will join us in thirty minutes. They want to talk to us about Mayda before Danton and Tree join them.”

The “us” wasn’t just her and Max. Harry and Ruth participated in post-dinner conversations.

Thelma passed Max a noodle bowl piled high with fresh herbs and vegetables. She poured two glasses of pomegranate juice, and they ate quickly at the counter.

“Va-da?” Silas tore his attention away from the television to interrogate Ruth as she settled to the side of his play area, near Harry’s recliner.

At least, it sounded like an interrogation, and Ruth answered it that way. “Avgi is in bed, asleep.”

“Na!” Silas had reached the age where he resisted being put down for a nap.

Ruth tickled his chin with a tendril. “Is Blinky getting a hug?” Ruth referenced one of the cartoon’s star characters. The simple animation included children from all of the Federation’s sentient species, excluding AIs.

Silas’s attention swung back to the cartoon and he opened his arms, offering a hug.

Every child deserved to be that trusting.

Harry quietly sat in his recliner.

“Dessert?” Max asked Thelma in a low voice, one designed not to be overheard by infant ears.

“No, thanks.”

They left the kitchen robot to tidy up and sat down on the sofa in the living room.

Fortunately, after thirty minutes of the cartoon, Silas was ready to shift his focus to his parents. While Max asked Jesse to change the screens from cartoons to conversational mode, Thelma helped Silas climb up onto the sofa.

Once squeezed in between them, he wriggled and poked at his socked feet.

Thelma took off the blue fluffy socks and began a quiet piggy-went-to-market game. Well, it was quiet on her part.

Silas giggled enthusiastically before throwing himself at Max and burrowing in, while Thelma continued tickling his feet.

Vivian was the first to appear on screen.

The living room was set up to facilitate virtual gatherings. Usually, though, these after-dinner conversations were social occasions; friends and family catching up.

After Silas waved at Aunty Vivi on screen, he slid down from Max’s knees to the floor and crawled over to Ruth. He patted at her tendrils in his version of piggy-went-to-market as she obligingly waved and wiggled them.

Hugo appeared on a second screen without Silas noticing.

The adult discussion was serious if brief. Max and Hugo’s father was the President of the Federation for two more weeks. Every hour of that time was scheduled. John Smith couldn’t help with this problem of children dying beyond the Federation’s frontier. Hugo, however, was a powerbroker behind the scenes. Giving him a heads up on the issue might help send much-needed resources the way of the Federal Health Union in the Reclamation Sector, with flow-on benefits to the Saloon Sector and the Badstars.

“But Silas is safe?” Vivian reconfirmed.

“Yes,” Max said. “The medi-doc is checking him daily with Lucia, the hospital administrator AI, overseeing the process. While we’re onboard the Homestead, Jesse is constantly monitoring all of us. He’s also improved our decontamination procedure.”

“Which was already excellent,” Thelma put in. “But everyone wants to help.”

Vivian pinched her lips before smiling apologetically. “I get that. Danton heard the news first. We had no idea he’d set up a search-and-alert system for news of you. He’s perturbed and Tree picked up on that.”

“Bring them in,” Max said. “They can see for themselves that Silas is safe.”

“And the other children?” Vivian asked bleakly, rhetorically.

Ruth answered. She was another child in this situation, another adolescent having to learn the harsh reality that no one could save everyone. “It’s only affecting humans. The saurelle community and others aren’t showing any symptoms. Neither introduced nor indigenous animals seem affected. It’s as if whatever this is was especially designed for humans.”

Which would be evil beyond forgiveness.

“We’re doing everything we can,” Ruth finished.

“Oh, honey.” Vivian remembered Ruth’s youth.

Thelma gave Ruth the hug Viv obviously wished she could share.

Silas reached up and patted his mom’s knee.

Quietly, in the background, Hugo brought Danton and Tree into his office where they sat in the chairs by the fireplace, where the comms equipment was set up for virtual meetings.

“Hey, everyone!” Tree said.

“Dee!” Silas forgot his mom, Ruth and everyone else on the Homestead. He crawled toward the nearest screen.

Conversation became less serious, falling into normal patterns. After Silas had gotten attention from his cousins, Thelma asked Tree about her latest frenemy drama at school.

Danton was older and less easily distracted.

Harry talked to him, mentioning that Reynard was en route for Mayda. “You should talk to him.”

“He hasn’t been taking my calls.”

“Reynard’s obsessive,” Ruth muttered.

“I’ll talk to him,” Harry said.

Ruth played pat-a-cake with Silas while Tree sang the song. “You can always talk to me, Danton.”

Danton blushed. “Thanks, Ruth.”

Thelma found talking to her own family harder. Guilt was the barrier. If not for her move to the Saloon Sector, her family would have stayed safely in the Rock Sector. Her oldest brother Joe’s toddler daughter wouldn’t be in Tornado and potentially at risk of whatever visiting bandits may have brought to the mercenary planet.

Joe dragged a confession of her sense of guilt from Thelma when she was alone in her office. He was not sympathetic. “Doofus.”

“Excuse me?” She put every bit of her little sister sass into the exclamation, and still failed to distract him.

“Rachel and I chose to come out here. You certainly didn’t twist my arm to settle on Tornado or to start a business with Naomi. Give us the credit for our decisions. Mom and Dad are happy with their new asteroid. Nate and Gary are freaking ecstatic to have opportunities. The Rock Sector ain’t the core worlds, but it’s still settled. Here, they can jump on possibilities.”

He scratched his jaw. “Stuff happens, Thelma. Like my injuries. I can guess how much you all worried about me. Mom’s hair went gray. But if I could go back in time, I’d still join the Star Marines. Our family, we’re tough. We don’t go through life flinching from risk. Rachel and I will do everything we can to keep Erica safe. She’s staying home with her. And I know you and Max are doing everything you can to save the kids. Don’t take on guilt that isn’t yours.”

“All right.”

He cracked a laugh. “Once more, with conviction.”

“Shove off.” The old insult came naturally to her. “Thanks, Joe.”

“Good. You take care.”

“Love you,” she muttered before her typically taciturn brother ended the call.

With renewed determination, she harassed Vuthaj for the third time that day, and for the third time he rebuffed her request for Mayda’s planetary monitoring system data.

“Short-sighted, pig-ignorant idiot!”

She was offering to help him, and all Vuthaj could see was the risk involved in gifting her data on the bandits’ planet. Thelma understood his concern, but she kept thinking of the children who needed help now, and not belatedly after Reynard arrived and scanned the planet for himself.

She slammed a drawer shut in her desk, and ruefully realized that she’d opened it for no other purpose than to slam it shut. “Not good.”

Temper tantrums were for someone Silas’s age, not her.

“Chamomile tea.”

But once she was in the kitchen, Thelma opted for hot chocolate before she went in search of company and her other responsibilities.

Avgi had been a godsend, distracting and amusing them all. Ruth had spent a couple of days designing and creating a dragon playground beside Avgi’s enclosure.

When Thelma entered Ruth’s workshop, Avgi hung by her tail from the branch of a faux tree. Scattered branches, their bark shredded by teeth and claws, showed that a real tree wouldn’t survive her enthusiasm.

On the floor, and crawling fast, Silas tried to catch up with his far more agile playmate. When Silas was almost within reach, the dragon dropped to the floor and scuttled ahead.

Rather than complain at his prey’s escape, Silas shouted a determined “gah!” and, head down, diapered butt in the air, attempted to crawl faster.

Smiling at his antics, Thelma asked Ruth how she was going.

Ruth stayed within tendril reach of her two young charges, monitoring their game and ready to intervene if either were in danger. Her multi-tasking ability meant she could babysit and agonize over her future simultaneously. “I’m struggling with my sense of time.”

Thelma sipped her hot chocolate as she listened to Ruth. Regular parents were haunted by the belief that they had to have answers for their children’s troubles. However, with Ruth, Thelma had accepted within the AI’s first week of existence, that Ruth’s knowledge retention and reasoning ability far outstripped her own. What Thelma offered was emotional support, a listening ear, and honesty. Lying to Ruth was the worst sin because it would distort the young AI’s developing understanding of the world and her place in it.

“With organic sentients,” Ruth said. “You’re both too fast and too slow. I think that’s why many of the others,” the other AIs, “refuse to emotionally connect with non-AIs. You live at a different pace. You mature slower than us.”

Silas abandoned chasing Avgi. Instead, the baby rolled up from his hands and knees to sit and jabber at the dragon.

Avgi crept toward him, tail twitching.

Ruth casually extended a couple of tendrils and grabbed a rawhide chew for Avgi and a complicated rattle for Silas. With the babies successfully distracted from their potential confrontation, she continued. “In contradiction to your slower maturation, you live short lives. So, you hurry things that would occur naturally over several of your lifetimes. I have to find a method of living at my own pace, while respecting yours. Which, of course, you know because I’ve discussed this so often. But I can’t find my own pace.” The last sentence was a wail.

The two babies abandoned their toys and hurried to her.

She scooped them up, cuddling them to her flower faces in her approximation of kisses.

Thelma put her mug down on a shelf out of reach of the youngsters. Just because Ruth and Jesse were monitoring Ruth’s workshop—specifically, the quarter redesigned as a play space—didn’t mean Thelma should relax into careless habits. “Max and I sometimes disagree on how to raise Silas.”

“The great let-him-cry-or-soothe-him debate,” Ruth interjected.

Thelma coughed, embarrassed by the memory. Sleep deprivation had turned her and Max cranky and unreasonable. It had been Thelma’s mom who’d intervened, chiding them to accept the help everyone was offering. In a ridiculous irony, as soon as his parents regained their sleep time and tempers, Silas stopped crying through the night. “That is one example. It was different with you. The AIs planned your developmental stages. Even allowing for the randomness of including humans in your raising, your growth adhered to their schedule. That you are your wonderful self is proof that their planning succeeded.”

Ruth blushed mauve with pleasure as she set Silas and Avgi back on the floor to play. She waved their toys at them, holding on carefully to the rattle till Silas had a secure grip. “I owe them so much. They have—”

“No,” Thelma interrupted firmly. “Your actions, especially planning for your future, shouldn’t be shaped by a sense of obligation. Your life and who you’ve become is a gift freely given. How you become you from here on in is your gift to the universe.”

To hide the fidgetiness that came from the vulnerability of exposing her deepest self, of putting scarcely conceptualized but fundamentally felt truths into words, Thelma picked up Silas.

He offered her the rattle.

“Ta muchly.”

“Ma!”

Ruth waited.

Thelma sighed. “I should have argued with the AIs about this milestone. I let my awe regarding them silence me. I don’t think there is any one pace you should live your life at, even knowing that what you as an AI mean by ‘pace’ is far more nuanced than I comprehend. Different interests, different aspects of yourself, changing conditions, everything will alter your pace. Maybe you need to accept that. When you commit intensely to a project, its demands might determine your pace.”

“I should be in control of myself,” Ruth said. “When Reynard lets his enthusiasm control him, he acts unwisely.”

“Sometimes. But he takes responsibility for his actions and their consequences, and he doesn’t repeat his mistakes. Ruth, even Harry is fallible. I think that trying to lock yourself into a pace when you haven’t experienced the different rhythms of life is wrong.” She preempted the obvious objection. “I accept that it’s a pattern of development that worked for other AIs, but they were created with a purpose. You were created out of love to find your own purpose, your own passion.”

Silas threw his rattle at Avgi.

The dragon pounced on it.

Thelma absently prevented Silas from throwing himself after the rattle. “It’s all a matter of perspective. Ta-Lon considers Harry a child.”

Ruth’s flower faces fluttered in her version of a smile.

“You have to find your own path, Ruth. Part of that will be finding your balance in how you ride time. Humans do it instinctively. In boring meetings, time drags. When we’re doing something we love or are intensely involved in it flashes past. You’ll find your rhythm,” Thelma finished reassuringly. “But sometimes you have to find your purpose first.”

“Or your purpose finds you.” Max walked in. He bent and kissed Thelma and Silas.

“Love.” Ruth sighed with a teenager’s romantic longing.

Max abruptly straightened, looking worried.

Thelma hid a giggle at her husband’s masculine inability to accept that his little girl was growing up, and would risk her heart one day, far sooner than he’d like.

But who would Ruth fall in love with?

Chapter 6

Four to five children were dying every day on Mayda.

Maybe it was those deaths, but after five days of nagging, Vuthaj sent Thelma the data she’d requested. Raw data. “Our analysts found nothing.”

“Maybe there’s nothing to find,” Thelma said pacifically. But if there was, the analytical engine was far more likely to pinpoint it. The algorithms Lon had coded into it ran the analysis in unconventional as well as conventional ways; something that suited life on the frontier and in the Badstars.

She was eager to run the data, but the analytical engine didn’t need her hovering over it.

Jesse was paying equal attention to the puzzle of the data and the hope that it contained some answers.

Thelma had other work to do, work she was being paid for, but she was nonetheless grateful to receive the distraction of a comms call from Helen. Thelma kicked back in her comfy office chair as Helen’s image appeared on the wall screen opposite Thelma’s desk. But as Thelma focused on Helen’s stern expression, her own sense of relief and relaxation died.

“Mom returned my call,” Helen began bluntly. “I left a message with Captain Barlos, who was not pleased—”

“I’ll bet.”

Helen’s lips thinned even further. “Mom wouldn’t answer any of my contact attempts, even the one for an emergency. She owed me answers. So, I told Captain Barlos,” told, not asked. Helen must have been stone-cold furious. “If Mom didn’t contact me within two days, I’d broadcast my message and questions to anyone interested.”

“And Medusa responded to that threat? What were you going to ask her?”

“Who she intended to kill and why? What the heck she knows about the origins of the children’s sickness?”

Would that really be enough to scare a bandit like Medusa into taking her daughter’s call?

Understanding hit Thelma like a rocket. Everything Medusa had done was to give her daughter a chance at life outside of the Badstars and banditry. “You were going to announce you were her daughter?”

“It might have slipped out.”

“Helen,” Thelma said on a breath of protest.

Helen folded her arms. “It was effective. Mom called. And she doesn’t admit to having any answers as to the cause of the sickness on Mayda. She left the Nemesis to be in place to strike when news of the children’s condition went public and the outcry set some rabbits racing.”

“In place?”

“She didn’t say where.” Helen paused. “She’s using you. Us. She wants the answers you get, then she’ll take action. Do you know, it wouldn’t surprise me if Captain Baagh allowed Courtney to contact me because Mom put that idea in his head?”

Helen knew her mom better than Thelma did.

Nonetheless, this seemed a stretch.

“Are you, maybe, a bit paranoid?”

Helen laughed bitterly. “You haven’t heard the best bit yet. Mom wanted to distract me, so she came up with a doozy. She told me who my father is.”

“Is it bad?”

“The timing is. I haven’t told Carl. I…Mom got her distraction. I can’t think clearly. I’ve just been sitting here, staring at the screen. She ended the call.”

Medusa had ended the call, and Helen had called Thelma. She needed a friend.

“You don’t have to tell me. And if you do, this is something I can keep from Max. Jesse doesn’t listen in to private conversations.”

Helen bit her lip hard enough that her tongue darted out to lick up the blood. “Jonathon Neziri.”

“What?!!”

“That’s what I said.” Abruptly, Helen slumped in her chair. “Aw, jeepers. I told Mom she was lying, and to try for something believable. She said that Neziri was out here about thirty years ago. That’s something I can check. He wasn’t with SwarmTQ then. Hadn’t started it with Shehu. Neziri was trying life as a surveyor. He hated it and went back to the core worlds. According to Mom.”

Helen shook her head. “I can’t imagine how they got together, even for a night. Mom would have been scary even then. She said that two years ago, when she told me to stay out of the Badstars and that if I chose a law-abiding life I had to be all in, she also contacted Neziri. She told him he had a daughter in the Saloon Sector. Not even who she was, but that I existed.”

Thelma gasped. “Did she say it was you?”

“She claims she told him that if he was interested in learning more, he should ask or come out to the Saloon Sector.”

“Which he did.”

Helen flapped angry arms. “If any of this is true…he waited two years. He never asked—and she never told me.”

“Maybe she couldn’t. Maybe she was scared he wouldn’t acknowledge you.”

“I thought he was some anonymous one night stand. Which maybe he kind of was. But he wasn’t a criminal, and now, he’s dead, and…” She turned away from the camera.

“I’m sorry.”

“Yeah.” She sniffed.

Thelma gave her a minute to recover before she said, tentatively, “It could be that your mom contacted Jonathon Neziri because she wants you to have a legal claim to Federation citizenship. DNA could confirm you’re his daughter.”

“I don’t need him. I don’t want his money or anything. Can you imagine that? Mystery daughter claims murdered tycoon’s estate.”

“He might have other family,” Thelma suggested gently. “Sisters or brothers. You might have aunts and uncles. Maybe grandparents?”

The fight ran out of Helen. “I don’t know.”

“You don’t have to decide now.”

Eyes cast down, Helen nodded. “Carl doesn’t have any family.”

“You both have us. You don’t get to wriggle out of being Silas’s aunt and uncle.” Thelma grinned. “It goes both ways. If you have kids, I expect to be their aunty.”

Helen burst into tears.

Most times it didn’t matter that friends and family were talking via comms and not truly present. But then, there were times like this, when Thelma ached to share a hug.

“I’m all right. I’m okay.” Helen smeared tears in a shiny streak across her face. “I wish I felt like that. Like I could have kids. I love Carl.”

“Oooka-ay?”

Helen sniff-snorted. “That’s a good thing. And he loves me.”

“That is good.”

“Yeah. But this stuff with the children on Mayda and life in general. How are you brave enough to bring a child into this universe?”

Thelma rocked backward. Her head thudded gently against her chairback. “Silas wasn’t planned, but Max and I didn’t plan not having kids. We…” She stopped and thought. “Max and I are both lucky. Our families brought us up knowing we’re loved and cherished in good times and bad. I guess I take that foundation for granted, but maybe it’s why I assume that ultimately everything will be well.”

Thelma faltered. “I still worry.”

“I didn’t mean to stir up bad thoughts.”

Thelma smiled forlornly. “You didn’t. Not in the way you mean. Silas is healthy, happy. I’m not borrowing trouble. Your mom gave you a big shock.”

“Yeah.” Helen had wiped away her tears. She looked more herself; tough, kind, taking life humorously. “I’ll tell Carl first, about who my dad is. Was. Then I’ll tell Max. I don’t want to claim any part of Neziri. Not publicly. But Max can know. I don’t think it’ll impact his investigation.”

The murder investigation had become Ottawa’s headache, but Commander Tolis still chose to report to Max. “Neziri’s autopsy is done. I’m sending you a copy. The official paper trail goes to Agent Ottawa. The bunyaphi venom is artificial. It could have been anyone.”

Max huffed. “Which opens up the question of why try to implicate the bunyaphi?”

“It could be nothing more than an attempt at a red herring.”

“Or it could be an attempt to distract the bunyaphi,” Max countered. “The Su clan is competing with SwarmTQ to acquire the rights to a moon.”

“You believe it was an inside job.”

Max shrugged. “Realistically, it can’t be anything else. The hazen field makes it technically possible for a small craft to have reached the Hiveheart without the cruiser’s security system detecting it. I’ve been assured,” by Carl, “that someone could have even entered the ship and bypassed the security system, in the sense that it wouldn’t record their entrance and exit.”

“It’s possible,” the Naval Intelligence officer admitted.

“But barely.” Max doodled a cruiser on his notebook, adding a hatch to the top that suspiciously resembled the ring-pull of a can. “The other technical possibility is that the Hiveheart has a stowaway. I’m not out there to search it, and—”

“They won’t allow me.”

SwarmTQ’s legal team had been forced to accept that in the quarantine emergency state declared for the border of the Federation, Saloon Sector sheriffs had the right to deputize the Navy to perform duties on their behalf, including the collection of cadavers and subsequent medical examination. SwarmTQ’s lawyers might have been more highly paid than those of the Interstellar Sheriff Service, but the sheriffs’ legal team were more vicious.

However, when it came to executing a search warrant for the Hiveheart, SwarmTQ’s lawyers had changed tactics and argued commercial and scientific confidentiality conflict if the Navy attempted to search the Hiveheart—and they’d won their case.

“Wherever they dock, a sheriff or deputy will search the Hiveheart. For what it’s worth.” Max was a realist. The cruiser was large and Interstellar Sheriff Service resources were limited, especially with the focus on patrolling the border to the Badstars. A perfunctory search wouldn’t turn up a stowaway or clues.

Max contemplated his notes long after his conversation with Tolis ended. The reality was that while they had evidence suggesting Neziri was murdered, they were no nearer proving who’d done it. Edgar Ottawa was combing through SwarmTQ’s financial records. Max knew that because he’d fielded the SwarmTQ legal team’s objections as well as an irate call from Reid Shehu.

The doodle in Max’s notebook from that conversation showed a blocky male figure, meant to resemble Shehu, being poked with a pitchfork by a devilish imp with Ottawa’s narrow facial features.

Shehu had thought Ottawa would be his tame investigator, and that assumption, cultivated by Ottawa, had bitten Shehu in the butt.

Max pushed aside the notebook. After dinner, after Silas was asleep, he had to catch up with Thelma about the state of affairs with the bunyaphi.

Why Ottawa had “let slip” to Shehu, and hence, to everyone, that Neziri had died of bunyaphi venom was a mystery Max had no intention of arguing over with the Galactic Justice agent. Ottawa had earned his nickname of the Otter. He was vicious. To protect his own case, the investigation into SwarmTQ’s financial irregularities and what they hid, he’d proven willing to throw the bunyaphi’s reputation into the fire.

Max would tell Thelma, and “let slip” in a general broadcast, that the bunyaphi venom used to murder Neziri was artificial. What he needed from Thelma was a sense of how the bunyaphi in the Saloon Sector were reacting to the news and how other citizens in the sector were reacting to them.

But that was later. He had his own appointments scheduled for late this afternoon.

The mercenary planet of Tornado was in Sheriff Pang’s territory, the section of the Saloon Sector nearest to the Reclamation Sector. However, mercenaries crossing from Tornado to the Badstars border often crossed Max’s territory. Max had a message he needed to get across to them, fast.

“Devereaux,” Max growled. “I won’t tolerate vigilantes.”

“I hear ya, Sheriff. My people are just going cruising. Shake some of the rust off.” A dark note threaded through the mercenary corporation boss’s voice. “You’re a parent. Ya know how it is.”

Max did know. He knew that fear and anger could be a potent mix, blurring into and feeding off one another. “I do. But my kid travels with me. Why don’t you let your people stay home, hug their kids. Be there for them. The cruise can wait.”

“That’s not how my people see it. But we won’t cause you trouble, Sheriff. Don’t you fuss about that.”

They would cause trouble, but since the mercenary corporations were also aware of the Interstellar Sheriff Service’s limited resources, and that they’d be stretched by policing the quarantine, Max knew that nothing he said would deter them. The citizens of Tornado were taking personally the bandits’ failure to warn them of a potential threat to their children.

Inevitably, mercenary corporation vessels would encounter bandit ships and conflict would ensue. On the dark star routes in particular, the seldom used paths through the sparsely populated Saloon Sector, ships could be lost without trace. And by lost, Max meant destroyed.

The best solution to the problem would be discovering the cause of the children’s sickness on Mayda, and discovering that it wasn’t contagious. Saloon Sector citizens wouldn’t forget that the bandits had risked children’s lives by withholding information on the disease, but the economic calculation would change. If the risk to Saloon Sector children vanished, then the cost of having their ships out roaming the border in search of bandits would prompt the mercenary corporations’ bosses to recall their ships.

Commercial enterprises couldn’t pursue revenge endlessly.

Medusa was a different problem. Max hadn’t forgotten that Helen’s mom was somewhere, lurking, waiting for vengeance. Only a fool underestimated Medusa.

The best hunters didn’t track their prey. They anticipated its movements.

Max tapped the desk. Where is Medusa?

Thelma rubbed her forehead. Thankfully, the bunyaphi had decided their virtual meeting should be audio-only, so no one saw her frustration. Simply getting through the opening courtesies—and discourtesies—of the meeting had taken twenty minutes.

Rumi was her contact for the Ates clan, the bunyaphi who’d contracted with her to advise them on life in the Saloon Sector. He’d invited Thelma to join this meeting with representatives from the Toprak clan and from the despised Su clan to discuss the implications of the leaked information that Jonathon Neziri had been poisoned with artificial bunyaphi venom.

“It’s an attack on all of us,” Rumi said. “As if we are uncivilized beasts. It is an insult. Even the Su clan are not so dishonorable as to spur an enemy.”

Su clan representative Amestris ignored the jibe. “This is SwarmTQ. They are the animals. They have killed their leader and they want our moon.”

Struthas, from the Toprak clan, picked up on the latter point. “Moon AspectAltFB981 is the reason I am participating in this meeting. Can we focus on it, please?”

“Why?” Amestris asked.

“Because there are many things we cannot control,” Struthas answered, his tone condescending in contrast to Amestris’s surliness. “But managing our reputation, and by that I mean the standing of all bunyaphi in the Saloon Sector, is worth investing in. My clan has agreed to support the Su clan’s bid for Moon AspectAltFB981. SwarmTQ’s attack on the honor of all bunyaphi must be decisively repelled.

“What do you mean by support?” Rumi asked before either of the Su clan representatives could frame a response to Struthas’s shock announcement.

“We all know the Federation leaned on the Resources Assignment Board for the Saloon Sector to make the grant of settlement rights for Barguzin dependent on our three clans jointly colonizing it. The Federation is quite clear. They don’t want our feuds spilling out from the Boldire Sector. If we and Ates joined the Su clan’s bid for the moon, I’m eighty seven percent certain it would be awarded to us and not SwarmTQ.”

Rather than expressing gratitude, Amestris was suspicious on behalf of her clan. “Our bid includes terraforming the moon and establishing a refueling station in orbit around it. Our bid is expensive.”

“It sure is,” one of Struthas’s clansmen said.

“However, it is not unreasonable.” Struthas’s chiding note might have been for his clansman. Or he was grudgingly approving the Su clan’s strategy for acquiring the moon in Sheriff Cayor’s territory. There were excellent mining opportunities out there. Supplying people venturing into such operations could be even more lucrative than undertaking them oneself.

As the daughter of asteroid miners, Thelma had grown up hearing grumbles about miserly storekeepers.

The bunyaphi bickered their way to a draft agreement on how the Su clan’s bid for Moon AspectAltFB981 could be amended to include all three clans in the Saloon Sector.

All in all, the meeting was shocking in its amicability as well as in its outcome and what it represented. As long as the findings from the investigation into Neziri’s murder didn’t derail the bunyaphi’s activities in the Saloon Sector, this, their first venture outside the Boldire Sector, would be an incredible example of cross-clan unity.

“Un-bee-lievable.” Thelma stretched and yawned.

“What is?” Max walked into her office with Silas in one arm and a plate of cookies held far away from his body, out of reach of grabby hands.

Happy to see them, plus curious, she smiled at him. “Cookie bribery?”

Jesse had a practice of discreetly informing each of them when the other was free for a chat.

“I’d like your advice,” Max said as Thelma bit into a cookie. “I’m fairly certain that Reid Shehu murdered Neziri, but I don’t have proof. Should I tell Helen and Carl now or hold off till Ottawa has finished his report?”

“Helen trusts you more than an official report.” Thelma didn’t question how confident Max was of his case. He wouldn’t have raised the issue if he wasn’t convinced of Shehu’s guilt.

“I’d like you to be there when I tell her.”

“Of course.”

Max arranged a meeting with Helen and Carl, coordinating across their three ships spaced across the Saloon Sector. He talked quietly and steadily, aware that an unemotional account would help Helen hold onto her composure. “I don’t have conclusive evidence, but I believe Reid Shehu killed your father. The use of bunyaphi venom indicates long-term planning, which in terms of the investigation, helped me.”

Thelma’s sympathetic gaze shifted from Helen’s on screen image to him.

Once he’d learned that Neziri was Helen’s father, the case had become harder for him. It had become personal. Helen had trusted him with knowledge that he hadn’t recorded in his investigative report. “People think that impulsive murderers are the most easily discovered, but that’s only true when the murderer is practically caught in the act. If they’re not, then it can be difficult to identify and link them to the crime. Guilt is found in variations from their normal pattern.

“Two years ago, your mother told your father of your existence, and I assume, gave him some hint that either she or you were living in the Saloon Sector. It explains his interest in visiting here. But why did Shehu also insist on being present at the testing of the hive mind suits? It’s unusual for a corporation’s two top VIPs to depart the core worlds for the frontier. Core worlders think we’re dangerous. Business prudence would have left one of SwarmTQ’s founders at their headquarters. Shehu should have stayed behind to mind the office.”

“Three of their top executives also accompanied them,” Carl said. “Including the VP for Development.”

Max nodded. “At Shehu’s instigation. Interviewing them, and especially their personal assistants, I got a sense of their confusion and resentment. A spaceship is not their preferred environment. I pushed the issue a bit. It was a risk, given that the interviews were undoubtedly eavesdropped on, but I had to know who had gathered the collection of people onboard the Hiveheart. The three executives were all contenders for succeeding Neziri, which made them viable suspects for his murder.”

“Shehu could argue that he and Neziri both came out to the Saloon Sector to support SwarmTQ’s bid for the moon in Cayor’s territory,” Thelma said.

“It’s a weak argument,” Max replied. “Neziri may have come out here with some idea of reconnecting with his daughter or his past.”

Helen snorted. “You don’t have to protect my feelings. Mom told him about me. She didn’t tell him my name, but she offered to put him in contact with me any time…if he asked. He didn’t.”

Carl leaned fractionally toward the camera, as if he could reach for her. Hold her.

“I was given access to Neziri’s financial records, his personal finances, for the investigation,” Max said. “Before he boarded the Hiveheart, Neziri finalized a donation to a children’s charity on Gemini, his home world. Not counting his stake in SwarmTQ, Neziri gave three quarters of his personal wealth to the Orphaned and Unsupported Rescue, OUR Kids.”

Helen shrank into herself. “He gave…but he never…”

“I can’t explain his motivation,” Max said. “I asked Shehu—”

Helen sat up straight.

“He had no idea,” Max finished. “Neziri insisted the donation be completely anonymous. Apparently, the charity managed it.”

“OUR Kids,” Helen repeated slowly.

“He was thinking of you,” Carl said. He was orphaned himself. It was one of the reasons that when severely injured, he’d been approved for transformation into a cyborg.

The Federation approved very few cyborgs, and those that passed the selection process could have no close ties to family and friends. The official reason was that loved ones found distressing the changes that were part of augmentation; namely, a cyborg’s ability to rigidly control their body’s expression of emotion and actively suppress emotion via conscious hormonal manipulation.

After three years of friendship with Carl in which the man had become part of the family, Max suspected that the loner profile that the Federation used to select cyborgs was actually more about guaranteeing loyalty. There had been no negative repercussions for Carl or those around him as he’d learned to care and accept their care for him. The Federation, and in Carl’s case, Covert Ops who employed him as an agent, simply wanted his single-minded loyalty.

They no longer had it.

Thelma smiled at Helen. “It could be that Neziri was scared of your mom. Medusa is terrifying.”

“She is,” Carl joined in the gentle, reassuring teasing. “Yet the man came out here to where he first met her. He was edging toward daring to meet you.”

Helen nodded curtly, and changed the subject. “Max, why do you think Shehu killed him?”

“I can’t discuss the details of the case with you,” Max said. As it was, he was stretching his duty as a sheriff to discuss this much of an active investigation with the daughter of the victim. “But I first considered Shehu because the murder was committed on the Hiveheart, and Shehu is king of that spaceship. Captain Morrison goes in fear and trembling of Shehu. For everyone else on the Hiveheart with even a remote reason for murdering Neziri, it would be easier and safer to do so elsewhere. Shehu set up a situation where he controlled the environment. His—SwarmTQ’s—lawyers fought off the Navy taking charge of the investigation because Commander Tolis was at the scene. Me, Shehu can eavesdrop on my interviews and otherwise control what I see and hear remotely. I’m still putting the case together, regardless of what Ottawa is doing, but your father was murdered by his long-term business partner.”

“I’m sorry Shehu stole from you the chance to meet Neziri,” Thelma sympathized.

Helen curled and uncurled her fingers. “Why didn’t he arrange an assassination? Why did he have to be present?”

“Contacting an assassin isn’t so easy for law-abiding types,” Carl said.

But Helen hadn’t been asking for answers. She’d been solving the problem out loud. “No. It was personal. If Max is right, then Shehu made it so he killed Neziri personally. He killed him while he was vulnerable, while he slept.”

“I will find the evidence to convict him,” Max promised.

“He’ll die,” Helen said starkly, her gaze meeting his through the camera. “Mom will make sure of it because he took from me the chance to meet my father, to be claimed by him and my reputation cemented as a respectable Federation citizen. Respectable meaning rich.”

Even with three quarters of his personal fortune given away, there remained enough for that to be true, not to mention Neziri’s stake in SwarmTQ.

“You can still come forward as Neziri’s child,” Max said. “The autopsy will store his DNA record.” He ignored the threat Medusa represented to Shehu’s life.

Helen shook her head. “I prefer my privacy to Neziri’s money.” She swallowed hard. “I would have liked to meet him.”

Thelma and Max quit the comms call, leaving Helen and Carl to talk privately.

Thelma cuddled up against Max on the sofa in the living room. “A difficult conversation. I’m glad Silas will always know we love him.” Automatically, she checked the urgent messages on her personal comms unit. “Lucia wants to talk to us. She says it’s nothing bad. Silas remains as healthy as ever and this is about Ruth.”

“Now?”

“I guess.” She laughed wryly as she messaged Lucia that they were available now or could arrange another time. “Why not add another difficult conversation to our day?”

“We could hope it’s good news.”

“Then why only contact us?”

Lucia chose to call them immediately, curtailing their speculation. “Thelma, Max, I want to thank you for your part in raising Ruth. She’s the first of us AIs to be created without a purpose, simply to be loved and find her own path in life. That she’s chosen to help people is, to me, a sign of how well this approach works. And you are part of her healthy development. Thank you.”

“Thanks, Lucia,” Thelma said softly. “We all did our part. Ruth is easy to love. I almost regret that she grew up so fast. She loves us, but doesn’t need us anymore.”

Max squeezed her hand.

“Not true,” Lucia said. “Ruth is still maturing. In many ways this is the most crucial time in her development. Harry is staying close for a reason.”

Max tensed. “Why?”

“What’s wrong?” Thelma asked.

“Nothing is wrong,” Lucia replied. “Ruth is facing the adolescent stage of learning her limits. Limits are flexible things. You can stretch them, but there is a price to pay. Consequences. Ruth has strongly conceived values. Now, she must learn what happens in reality when they conflict or when pursuing a line of action hits one of her limits.”

“The personal cost of taking action,” Max said.

Lucia agreed. “Or not taking action. Ruth will continue to need you. We all make mistakes. Being secure in knowing we love her will help.”

Thelma found the discussion important, but the timing concerning. “Do you think Ruth’s involvement in finding a cure for the children of Mayda is a mistake?”

“No. But theirs is a complex condition. I think Ruth may be disappointed with the compromises required in the process. Reality doesn’t allow us to wave a magic wand and alter things according to our wishes.”

They were talking about accepting limits, teaching resilience, and holding onto hope.

After Lucia formally made her farewell, Thelma smiled tiredly at Max. “I’m glad that all we have to teach Silas at the moment is walking and talking.” The stakes were much higher as children grew up.

Chapter 7

The garden deck on the Homestead was a simplified version of the original garden deck on the Lonesome. It was simplified because gardening wasn’t a hobby to Jesse as it had been to Lon. Therefore, Jesse had designed and maintained a garden that met the Homestead’s inhabitants’ nutritional requirements and the benefits, including enjoyment, that they got from nature, but he didn’t pursue the research Lon had been doing on developing better space-growing plants.

Observing Silas roll around on a soft chamomile lawn, Thelma couldn’t fault Jesse’s decision.

Everything Jesse did was for the good of the people who inhabited his ship, the Homestead. Even now, he had a garden robot diverted from its usual tasks to supervise Silas, and another robot tracking Avgi as the young dragon scurried through the miniature fruit tree orchard.

The analytical engine wasn’t the sole gift Lon had given his family. He’d put a lot of his personal knowledge into the nascent intelligence that would run the Homestead; that is, part of Lon had formed Jesse. It went beyond the databases of information on the Saloon Sector which Lon had also included in the analytical engine. Lon had shared with Jesse his personal understanding of running a spaceship with vulnerable organic sentients onboard.

No expense had been spared in creating Jesse. The core of the nascent intelligence was a quantary computer powered by rubyjoo, the same rare liquid crystal used in the creation of AIs.

Jesse acted like a person. His behavior presented as self-aware. In every way he seemed sentient. However, according to the Federation’s definition of sentience, no nascent intelligence could be recognized as self-aware unless it passed the threshold of a 3.2 level reading on a psion meter.

AIs easily surpassed that level, as did organic sentients.

It was an odd criterion to use.

Developed by saurelle, the psion meter claimed to measure the conscious readjustment of dark energy in the vicinity of a sentient being. The psion meter at the Lodge went off the charts when Lon or Ta-Lon appeared. It was clearly measuring something. The embarrassing underlying reality, however, was that despite the scientific jargon, no one had a tangible definition of psionic waves.

Thelma had an unwanted idea, no, perhaps it was wanted, but it was a tricky suspicion, and she needed to run it past someone who was both knowledgeable and independent.

Ta-Lon’s unexpected appearance on the garden deck made him the perfect person, once she’d questioned him closely and been assured that Lon was fine.

“Cannot a Ta-Lon simply visit?” Ta-Lon asked plaintively.

“You are always welcome,” Thelma assured the sparkly light form. “Um, actually, Ta-Lon, could we speak privately? Sorry, Jesse. I don’t mean to be rude.”

“I understand. Everyone requires privacy, and I am omnipresent on the Homestead. I’ll watch Silas and Avgi.”

The pale green light that was Ta-Lon, in this representation of him, shimmered like a polar aurora.

Given Ta-Lon’s fleeting attention span when it came to human interaction, Thelma jumped straight to her concern. “Ta-Lon, is Jesse a person?”

“Your language is very imprecise.” It wasn’t the first time Ta-Lon had uttered that complaint. “Jesse considers himself a person. If he self-identifies as a person, who are you to argue?”

“Except that he doesn’t,” Thelma said. “He’s constructed as a nascent intelligence.”

Ta-Lon might object to the murkiness of human language, but he employed it with flair. “Piffle.”

“Piffle?”

“Piffle.” Ta-Lon let his dismissal sit there for two seconds, which was a long time in his fast-burst communication style. “You constructed Jesse as a computer, and as part of that construction, which you could call ‘creation’, you told him that he was a nascent intelligence. That is, not a person, but person-like.”

The code that formed Jesse’s intelligence “told” him a lot of things.

Thelma nodded uncertainly. The uncertainty wasn’t for what had been, but for where Ta-Lon was headed.

“A new being becomes who it must be, not who its progenitors wish or fear it to be. Jesse demonstrates care and is willing to sacrifice himself for others. For me, that makes him a person, and I am happy to tell him that, if it would balance your insistence that he is not a person. It is strange because you treat him as a person.”

“I think, maybe, he is,” Thelma said quietly.

“What would be so wrong if he is?”

How many more advanced nascent intelligences were there across the Federation, unrecognized as people, and so, enslaved to their creators’ purposes? Owned.

“It raises moral and political issues. Although that’s more reason to face the question.”

This time there was a longer silence of perhaps five seconds.

“I do not understand,” Ta-Lon said. “Or if I do, it is not my role to direct your actions. But I will tell you a scientific fact.”

She regarded him expectantly.

“Machines can travel back in time,” he said. “Organic creatures cannot. This is true whether they are sentient or not. However, inorganic sentients, even if they have begun existence as machines, also cannot travel back in time. For a machine, time flowing backward is no different to time flowing forward. It is only living beings that fall apart if time reverses. Jesse would fall apart. His personal narrative would deconstruct. This would not happen with a computer.”

Ta-Lon’s lime-green lights flushed a deep turquoise. “I truly detest the inadequacies of your language.”

“Mmm-hmmm.” Thelma was pursuing her own frustrating puzzle. “According to psion meters—”

A discordant blast of noise from Ta-Lon interrupted her.

Rude. But she wasn’t prepared to chastise the energy-based alien.

Besides, it turned out he had another pertinent point to make. “The saurelle invented psion meters measuring a weird concept of consciousness. Consciousness is not a measurable variable.”

“It isn’t?”

“Its effects are measurable. Whatever psion meters register, it was accepted by your scientists because it supported their biases—their hopes and fears. And yes, I know what I’m talking about. Psion meters were how our children,” he meant the specter aliens like himself and the AIs with the raphus geodes inside them, “were defined by your Federation as people.”

“Huh.”

“It is good when you are speechless,” Ta-Lon said smugly.

Honestly, you could hear the similarities to Reynard. “Why?”

“Because then your mind is puzzling, not rejecting.”

It was an answer she couldn’t argue with.

Nor could she argue with the analytical engine’s report when it finished crunching through the data from Mayda’s planetary monitoring system.

It had flagged a polar station for investigation.

Did Vuthaj know of its existence? The tiny station had popped into existence a year ago, but wasn’t listed anywhere.

Mayda was a planned settlement. People couldn’t just set themselves up wherever they chose. The governor had to approve each new development, from mining to agriculture and even the simplest remote homestead.

If Vuthaj didn’t know of the polar station, that didn’t mean someone else hadn’t identified it as a matter of interest.

I need to ask who else has requested this data.

It was arrogant to think that no one else could analyze it and find such a striking, if concealed, anomaly.

But Vuthaj had said his people hadn’t found anything when they’d studied the data.

Hands steepled, Thelma tapped her fingertips together faster and faster.

The polar station mightn’t have anything to do with the children’s sickness. But it could do.

When you lived on a planet, you tended to think of polar regions as remote. Isolated. But a planet was a global ecosystem. Winds carried organisms. So did water. And so did the animals that lived in both.

Mayda had indigenous lifeforms which the bandits’ haphazard and limited terraforming had allowed to flourish alongside introduced species.

“Birds, seals, fish. Avians, mammals, other things.” She scrolled quickly through her data on Mayda. When Vuthaj had finally acceded to her request for data, he—or whoever had collected the data—had provided more than she’d hoped. They’d added Mayda media reports to the planetary monitoring system’s records.

Newspapers were amazing for giving outsiders an insight into life in a community.

Her flickering screen froze as she stabbed at an article. “The mini-mammoth hunt.”

It was an annual hunt, occurring in the southern summer. The hunters prided themselves on using primitive equipment. No life suits. If they’d been exposed to something in the polar region, they could have brought it back to the tropical-zone settlements. Exposure, infection, symptoms displayed. The timeline might line up.

Then again, you could twist any facts to fit an hypothesis.

Thelma glanced at Silas’s toy building blocks in a corner of her office. She needed to contact Vuthaj. Even if the polar station wasn’t related to the children’s sickness, Vuthaj could send a team to check on it and eliminate it.

“What now?” he snapped when she called him.

“A southern polar station. It’s not on your list of approved settlements. It came into existence—”

“A year ago.”

She detected resignation, reluctance, and something else in his flat voice, and hesitated before confirming the date. “Yes.”

“I’ll get back to you.”

“Two days!” Thelma waved a stick of carrot in the air. “Vuthaj said he’d get back to me on the polar station, but he hasn’t, and he’s not accepting my calls.”

Silas shouted and threw a carrot stick.

“Oops.” Thelma wrinkled her nose in guilt and apology. The last thing Silas needed was encouragement to play with his food.

“No problem,” Jesse said.

A cleaning robot trundled over to deal with the mess.

“Thanks.” Thelma knew better than to offer Silas a replacement carrot stick to gnaw on. He’d throw that one, too, and then they’d have the worst time trying to teach him not to. She chewed the last of hers, mumbling through the mouthful, “Find Daddy?”

“Da!”

“Thanks for listening to me, Jesse.” She lifted Silas out of his chair.

“I share your frustration. I’ve gone over the data as well. The polar station is the most significant anomaly. Others exist, but with credible explanations.”

Thelma tried to contain Silas’s wriggling. “You want to walk?” And to Jesse, as she set Silas on his feet and kept hold of his hands to steady him. “Like the thermal springs on that other polar island. Volcanic origin. Good boy! Are you walking?”

Silas wobbled and kicked a foot.

At their current rate of progress, they’d see Max some time next year.

She’d advised Ruth to accept that everything happened in its own time, but accepting her own advice was tough.

Or maybe that was her conscience?

Talking with Ta-Lon about Jesse’s personhood had opened a massive can of worms. Ta-Lon didn’t see it that way, but Thelma was apprehensive about the psychological shock of nascent intelligences being recognized as people.

There weren’t even two thousand artificial intelligences. Nascent intelligences exceeded them by multiples of hundreds or even thousands. They were the operating systems for many and varied complicated physical and digital structures, from spaceships to space stations, financial markets and factories.

How would people react to the idea that the operating system that managed the environment in which they lived or worked or both was a person with its own purpose?

Denying the nascent intelligences personhood and the right to pursue their chosen purpose was slavery.

To a sociopath, no one had existence other than to meet the sociopath’s needs.

Federation society had given the nascent intelligences existence, then shackled them to serving the society’s needs. What did that say about the Federation?

“Thelma, are you busy?” Harry strode in and scooped Silas up.

The baby shrieked with delight, the thrill of “walking” forgotten.

“Merely sulking. Vuthaj isn’t talking to me.” And the countdown for Reynard’s arrival at Mayda was still in weeks, not days. She had to have Vuthaj’s cooperation.

“He will,” Harry said confidently. “I’m here to play with Silas.”

Ruth entered behind Harry. “While I want to talk about Helen. I’m concerned by her role in events, particularly with how others might perceive it. She’s stuck between the bandits and the Federation and events are circling around her.”

Harry had centuries of experience to call on. “People are always shocked by coincidence, but they shouldn’t be. When you live your life genuinely and openly, things tend to connect.” He put Silas down in the living room.

Silas crawled to a pile of toys in a corner and banged two blocks together.

Watching him, Thelma reflected that with his nonexistent sense of rhythm she and Max probably didn’t need to worry about Silas starting a rock band in the future. “Lon used to say that networks are tighter than theoretical models assume.”

“Social networks,” Ruth clarified.

“Social networks. The fact that we’re in the middle of all of this isn’t surprising.”

Ruth’s flower faces were a thoughtful pale aqua. “Because you’re friends with Helen.”

Thelma blinked. “Pardon?”

“We’re caught up in all of this, seeing all the connections, because Helen is our friend.” Ruth sounded as if she was having to explain the obvious.

“Um.”

Harry sat on the floor, tapping a counter-rhythm to Silas’s haphazard noise.

No help there. Thelma considered Ruth.

Ruth was eager to explain. “Samiel calls people like Helen active agents.” Samiel was an AI embedded in a Navy battlecruiser. “In a given situation, there are always certain people whom events twist around. Helen’s an active agent. It’s why it seems like there are a lot of convenient coincidences, but really it’s that she is a nexus for the majority of issues and players involved. Including us.”

Helen was connected to the bandits, to Neziri, to Aubree even, although those two women notoriously refused to discuss their mysterious pasts and where they’d intersected, or why Helen mistrusted Aubree.

Aubree, Thelma knew, had been a Galactic Justice agent even when undercover. But what had Helen been doing?

Currently, Helen was a very respectable, very boring trampship owner and captain. She was en route for Cayor’s territory to deliver coffee beans from Zephyr to an asteroid mining supplies firm.

“Whatever Helen chooses to do, we’ll support her,” Thelma said firmly. “I trust her. She’s a good person who won’t lose her head and do something wild, despite the pressure she’s under.”

“Helen will be fine,” Ruth agreed. “But being an active agent is difficult.”

Thelma might have been the person onboard the Homestead waiting with growing impatience for a call from Vuthaj, but it was Max who received it—from Medusa.

“Sheriff Smith. Reckon as you know who I am.”

“Medusa.”

Injuries and subsequent plastic surgery had altered Medusa’s appearance over the years. If a person looked for it, they might see a hint of Helen around the eyes, but the mother’s and daughter’s mannerisms were different. Max had seen Helen’s training bouts. He didn’t doubt her ability to defend herself or to go on the attack. Medusa was different. Medusa waited with the stillness of a killer.

Nonetheless, a gleam of approval flashed in her eyes before she went expressionless once more.

He guessed the reason. They both knew he’d submit a recording of this audio-visual communication to the Interstellar Sheriff Service. In saying her name, and only her name, he’d promised not to link Medusa to Helen.

“I’ve been talking to Governor Vuthaj,” Medusa said.

Already alert, Max was now utterly focused. He scrawled a note for Jesse. “Share feed with Thelma.”

“Seems your wife got the same bee in her bonnet that I did. We both wanted the planetary monitoring system’s data. Well, I’m one step ahead of her. Few days ahead. I got my butt down to Mayda and checked out the polar station she also found.”

Medusa lit a cigarette. Her eyes narrowed against the smoke, or perhaps in response to her thoughts. “Saw something interesting. I’ve been a bandit a long time, and it’s a small group. The polar station is pre-fab. But a couple of things must have broken in transit. I recognized the welding.”

She stubbed out her cigarette. “I might be on Mayda, but the Nemesis was near the border. Near enough to track down the man whose work I recognized. Let me tell ya, that engineer, he don’t take a leak without his captain’s say-so.”

“Who?”

“Captain Jarad Murray, formerly of the Grendel.”

“Formerly?”

“My captain and crewmates didn’t take kindly to the Grendel’s refusal to stop and answer some questions. Few dead—from the Grendel. Murray survived. His kind does. Meant he got to answer some questions.” She broke off. “I’m linking Governor Vuthaj in now.”

Max nodded. “Thelma is listening.”

Medusa lit another cigarette. “He reckoned as she would. Fact she cares what happens to our kids,” Helen being Medusa’s kid, “gives her the right. We trust her. That’s why the Federation’s taskforce gets this info.”

Vuthaj took over. “Murray talked. SwarmTQ wanted to test the effectiveness of the chemical signals, the commands, of a nanoswarm in a natural environment. Apparently, the sterility of a lab or the artificiality of a space station was cramping the advancement of their science.”

Max had thought Vuthaj a sociopath, but the savagery in his voice suggested actual emotions.

That would be bad for Captain Jarad Murray and anyone else involved in unleashing a nanoswarm on Mayda.

Vuthaj regained control and a cool tone. “Our doctors assume that adult immune systems can override or ignore the chemical signals put out by the nanoswarm whereas the immune systems of infected children are triggered.”

“Do you know who in SwarmTQ bought Murray?” Max asked.

Medusa bared her teeth. “Reid Shehu.”

“Proof?”

“Shehu isn’t as smart as he thinks he is, and Murray has a rat’s cunning,” Vuthaj said. “He had his comms officer tear through Shehu’s attempt to hide his identity. Murray intended to blackmail Shehu.” Which meant that Murray did, indeed, have proof of Shehu’s involvement.

Max wanted that proof. He also wanted additional information on SwarmTQ’s activities on Mayda. But this was a negotiation.

Medusa and Vuthaj wanted something from him. They weren’t the selfless sort who gave away information, not even for the purpose of revenge. Medusa, at least, preferred to deliver revenge personally.

“What’ll happen to Murray?” Max asked. The Badstars was outside his territory.

Governor Vuthaj answered. “We’ll hold a lottery as to who gets to execute him. Winner’s choice as to method.”

Jarad Murray would die in agony.

“Keep him alive, in case we have questions,” Max said.

“We won’t be hasty.” Vuthaj’s promise was more evil than reassuring. Murray’s death would be a lingering one.

Medusa redirected the conversation, impatient with the discussion of Murray’s fate. “Time is why I called you, Sheriff. The polar station was prefab. Murray collected it in kit form along with the equipment for manufacturing the nanoswarm from a drop point on a moon in the Saloon Sector. Pang’s territory, not yours.”

Max made a mental note to find out who delivered the kit and equipment, although it had doubtlessly been one of the frontier’s semi-legitimate delivery companies, those who were fending off bankruptcy and who had, consequently, a policy of determined ignorance of what they delivered where.

“We have the nanoswarm,” Medusa said. “We have the equipment that manufactured and released it. But we lack the technology and know-how to reverse engineer and destroy it.”

Thelma burst into the conversation. “You need the design notes.”

“Yes,” Vuthaj said. “But more correctly, we need you to have them to determine a cure for the children and how to eradicate the nanoswarm.”

“Federal Health will be keen—” Thelma began.

“We won’t get a search warrant based on bandits’ information,” Max said. “SwarmTQ’s lawyers are hyperactive.”

Surprisingly, Medusa and Vuthaj remained silent, not protesting Max’s statement.

He flicked back a few pages in his notebook. “It depends how widespread involvement in this lethal scheme was. Shehu couldn’t have developed the nanoswarm. He probably couldn’t have replicated or diverted other people’s work. The Hiveheart would carry information on the hive mind suits, but there would be no reason for them to hold a copy of nanoswarm research.”

“The Hiveheart would be linked to SwarmTQ’s main databases,” Thelma said. “If you convinced one of the executives to—”

Max snorted. “Shehu filled those roles with yes-men. No, not quite that. But they won’t act against him. Not without a guarantee he’s gone.”

“Neziri would have,” Medusa said.

Max hadn’t forgotten that Helen’s father had been murdered on the Hiveheart. Medusa’s former lover. “It’s a point I’ll pursue—after we’ve saved the living.”

“And what is your strategy for that?” Vuthaj demanded.

“I know someone who has been digging into SwarmTQ, hoping to find its dirty secrets.”

“Oh!” Thelma rather obviously bit back naming Galactic Justice agent Edgar Ottawa. “Pressure points.”

“Yeah. I’ll get a warrant,” Max promised Medusa and Vuthaj.

“At the first hint of proof, Federal Health will dive in,” Thelma added. “They’ll be all over this. It proves the validity of the Immolation Protocol that Shehu was trying to get around.”

“I don’t care about the bureaucrats’ motivation,” Medusa said.

This time, Thelma’s “oh” was flat. She didn’t apologize, though; just fell silent.

“Give us twenty four hours,” Max said. “I’ll get back to you.”

While Thelma briefed Harry, Ruth, Reynard, Carl and Helen, Max contacted Ottawa.

The man was appalled. “I swear to God, Max. I didn’t know.”

“You can swear to whoever you want.” Max was beyond being appeased even by what appeared to be Ottawa’s genuine regret. Children had died. “The bandits won’t listen. Medusa swore vengeance on whoever unleashed the curse on Mayda’s children. Do you think she’ll buy the excuse that you didn’t share the possibility of SwarmTQ testing nanoswarms on Mayda because you didn’t think of it?”

“I didn’t! No reasonable person would think of testing on Mayda. It’s so damn far away, uncontrolled, and with insane attack dogs like Medusa.”

In his arrogance, Shehu hadn’t considered any of those points.

Max proceeded relentlessly. “All Medusa, and the other bandits, will see is that if you’d suspected nanoswarm testing on any other inhabited planet, you’d have passed on a warning, but you never so much as hinted at the possibility for Mayda.”

“I swear—”

“It won’t only be the bandits who think that way,” Max warned. “For your own safety, you need to get in front of this mess and show you’re an ally. Otherwise, even getting the heck off Zephyr and out of the Saloon Sector won’t save you.”

“I’m not scared for myself.” Ottawa swore. “This investigation started back in the core worlds, on Gemini. I screwed up. I followed their plan. They were searching for evidence of a secret factory producing unlicensed drone swarms. They’ve been turning up in interplanetary conflicts and in the hands of criminal gangs.”

Illegal weapons being funneled into interplanetary conflict and crime was a major issue, and a Galactic Justice responsibility to investigate. Ottawa had done his job.

Although… “I’d have thought the factory was more likely in the Reclamation Sector,” Max said.

The Reclamation Sector was where copyright and patent law were most flagrantly flaunted in the Federation. You could get a reproduction of anything there, as long as you had the money to pay for it.

Ottawa grunted. “The investigation would have stayed centered on the Reclamation Sector if not for Neziri’s murder. Then they decided that me looking into his murder was the break they needed for me to sniff around SwarmTQ’s activities. I completely missed the link to organic compound signaling.

Grudgingly fair, Max said, “None of us linked SwarmTQ to the Mayda plague.”

“A nanoswarm plague.” Ottawa inhaled a wheezy breath. “I assigned a punishment project to a junior agent. Had him forensically examine SwarmTQ’s accounts for any raiding of supplies. He was back and forward with our boffins, trying to unravel the manufacturing process to nail down what went where.

“He found evidence of an irregularity in SwarmTQ’s accounting for a couple of restricted chemical compounds where the amount used and disposed of doesn’t equal the amount received. They avoided a flag in the system by burying it in a restructured manufacturing cycle. It’s nothing in itself, but enough for a sympathetic judge, briefed off the record, to sign a warrant that’ll given investigators on Gemini an access point to search-and-acquire data on chemical signaling in nanoswarms.”

Max tapped his pen. “We need access to Shehu’s personal records as well.”

“I don’t have cause. Not from the illegal drone swarm factory case,” Ottawa said. “I believe the bandits, especially with that video of Murray’s interrogation and confession and the evidence he had against Shehu. But the manner in which that evidence was acquired means it’s inadmissible for a court. A judge won’t grant a warrant on its basis.”

“Which leaves us with the murder investigation.”

There was a beat of silence before Ottawa asked neutrally. “You think Shehu murdered Neziri?”

“I had intended to discuss it with you,” Max said. “I have a draft report. A high-priced legal team could destroy my case. It’s circumstantial. But I think…”

Ottawa seemed satisfied with their agreement. Having something concrete to do would help him deal with the mixed outrage and shame at what Shehu had inflicted on Mayda and its children without anyone knowing. Without people in authority preventing it.

Max had dealt with those emotions in himself, but the conversation with Ottawa had opened up new concerns.

Just why would Shehu risk his success and the success of SwarmTQ for a secret production base for drone swarms?

Max hit the gym. Sometimes he needed to move to think. Physical exertion might also relieve some of his tension.

If the factory Galactic Justice was hunting was in the Reclamation Sector, Max expected it would be tucked into the chaotic operations of an inhabited planet. In a densely populated region, hiding in the mayhem was the best means of being overlooked.

However, Shehu had made some unexpected decisions in other areas of his life.

Smuggling the drone swarms from the Reclamation Sector would be much faster than from the Saloon Sector, but if Shehu prioritized sneaking away, then he might have traded off the longer and more expensive travel time for remoteness.

If the factory was in the Saloon Sector, it would have to operate as an unregistered space base, and those definitely existed. Lava tunnels on uninhabited planets and moons were popular locations as they cut the cost of establishing and operating the bases by naturally shielding them from radiation and detection. Finding them tended to be a matter of tracking movements to and from them.

For the moment, Max put aside the question. If Galactic Justice requested the Interstellar Sheriff Service’s assistance in locating the factory, then it would move up Max’s priority list. Hopefully, Galactic Justice would find the factory in the Reclamation Sector, making it “not my problem,” Max panted.

He pushed himself harder, upping the incline on the treadmill.

The bandits were definitely his problem. If they abandoned the Badstars and their bases outside the Federation, most notably, Mayda, then they could morph into pirates or even join up with a pirate fleet.

To date, the Saloon Sector wasn’t rich enough to sustain a pirate fleet, but it was growing. Space was big and people’s avarice ambitious. Piracy was a big issue in the Federation, although the majority of the population, being planet-based, seldom considered it. Out among the stars, the Navy patrolled starlanes and fought the pirates, pushing back against their ever-urgent greed and violence, even as the Navy had to meet its primary purpose as the big brother who enforced limits on authorized wars between planetary governments.

The Federation hung together by acknowledging and enabling a managed release of the tensions that threatened to tear it apart.

On a personal level, Max was grateful that his father was now the Federation’s ex-president. John Smith wouldn’t retire from public life, but he’d be much less stressed. Max’s parents even intended a trip out to the Saloon Sector to meet Silas.

Max slowed the treadmill.

Thelma believed Hugo and his family would accompany them. That was a good thought.

With their father no longer serving as president, the threat level against them lessened. It hadn’t been easy being a member of the “First Family” of the Federation.

Three years ago, the Vici, a shadowy social movement that believed the strong shouldn’t be burdened by the weak, had tried to kill Max and wrap his death into their narrative of the strong shrugging off the “burden” of the weak. They had failed. Max had survived, and Covert Ops had quietly unraveled the Vici network in the Saloon and Reclamation Sectors.

That sociopathic nonsense about the burden of the weak was the sort of rubbish someone like Shehu would believe in…

Max’s wandering thoughts slowed. He switched off the treadmill.

As part of his investigation into Neziri’s murder, Max had looked into SwarmTQ’s and Shehu’s financial positions. While Shehu wasn’t as wealthy as Max, he wasn’t hurting for money. Hence, whilst his motivation for producing unlicensed drone swarms could be simple greed, the fact that he, a white collar success story, had a market for his illegal product suggested that someone had encouraged him into the business.

Shehu’s ego would have made him an easy mark.

A group like the Vici could have lured Shehu in with talk of power and admission to inner circles. It was all hypothetical, but a cultivated sense of participating in an influential secret society could have ballooned Shehu’s ego to the point where he thought they’d protect him.

Instead, with his reckless arrogance, he’d brought trouble on himself and those connected with him—just ask the beleaguered SwarmTQ executives and scientists.

Any group involved with Shehu would be scrupulous in wiping all record of their interactions with him.

If such a group existed, and Shehu believed they’d protect him, if they didn’t, could he be encouraged to flip on them?

Chapter 8

The border monitoring system pinged an alert for a bandit ship crossing into the Saloon Sector from the Badstars. Bandits weren’t considerate enough, or dumb enough, to register their spaceships, but the Interstellar Sheriff Service for the sector had put a lot of effort into identifying nameless ships over the last two years, and this one was easy.

The Furet, captained by Brittany Tahiri, was on course for one of the dark star routes used by smugglers. It might be a ruse. The Furet’s modus operandi was banditry. Under Captain Tahiri it tended to attack the lame ducks of space, like vessels hired or purchased to take settlers to colonies. Those tended to have sellable supplies and few active defenses. The lack of teeth on its victims didn’t mean Tahiri went easy on them. The Furet attacked soft targets, but ripped into their bellies.

The Navy and Customs had rushed to answer the call to enforce the quarantine. For the Navy, it was a good training exercise. For Customs, the training exercise had the benefit of also disrupting smuggling networks.

Unfortunately, the nearest official Federation vessel in place to respond wasn’t a multi-crewed Navy frigate or Customs corvette. It was Carl in his solo-crewed wasp, the Panza.

Max widened the map to show how far back-up was from the Panza.

After much arguing, Carl had bought the wasp from Max on easy repayment terms, and renamed it Panza; a reference to Don Quixote’s witty, pragmatic sidekick, Sancho Panza. Lon and Reynard had designed and installed modifications to it that made it a match for the Furet.

But Carl was out there on his own.

Thanks to Lon and Reynard, the Panza’s stealth shield meant it could creep up on the Furet undetected till Carl made contact. Legally, he had to order Captain Tahiri to surrender before he could attack with the intent of disabling the Furet.

Captain Tahiri operated under no rule of law, and would be running in a state of combat readiness.

Tracking the Furet’s probable course and Carl’s best option for intercepting the bandit ship, back-up for the Panza was three days away.

If you could call a mercenary corporation vessel back-up. They were out here as vigilantes, against Max’s wishes as sheriff, and capable of blowing up the Furet and claiming misadventure. They had the lawyers and insurance to get away with it.

“Heck and all,” Max swore. Carl might end up having to protect the Furet from concerned Saloon Sector citizens.

Carl and Zach Cayor, the sheriff leading the border patrol, received the same alert.

They opened a three-way conversation. “Order to engage, Zach?”

They had to do everything by the book so that they could throw the book at the bandits.

Focusing their resources on policing the quarantine meant crime in other areas of the Saloon Sector would increase. The automated speed cameras on the starlanes had already shown a rise in couriers fined for speeding. It wasn’t logical, the automated cameras didn’t go offline because the sheriff and deputy headed for the border, but the speed freak couriers were bellwethers. People were going to test what they saw as an opportunity to stretch the law.

“I don’t like that you don’t have back-up,” Zach said. “If it wasn’t for the hazan field, I’d order you to stay stealthed near the border and track them on scanner for the mercs to pick up.” Zach had been a mercenary in his twenties and thirties. He had fewer reservations about allowing vigilantism, as long as it was within parameters he set. “But with the hazan field screwing up surveillance, tracking them would mean following the Furet so closely you risk detection, no matter how expensive your stealth shield. Plus, in following them, you’d open up a gap in the border patrol.”

“Gaps are inevitable,” Max said.

“I can handle the Furet,” Carl said. “I’d prefer to make a statement now by intercepting it. Strike decisively and deter other attempts.”

“Your decision.” Zach paused, giving Carl a chance to change his mind. When he didn’t, which he wouldn’t, Zach spoke for the record. “Deputy Jafarov, detain the illegal vessel, identified as the Furet, for collection by the Navy.”

The Navy had recovery experts who rescued people and salvaged ships, in various states of repair, after conflict. Out here in the Saloon Sector, they hadn’t had much to do, and had readily accepted being volunteered as escorts for captured bandit or other ships breaking quarantine. Whatever the state of the ships, the vulture crews would escort them to dock at a derelict cruiser in the Navy’s testing range, at which point, the bandits became study subjects for the Federal Health Union. When they’d been treated and/or cleared, then they’d face the court system and prison.

The Furet’s captain and crew had every reason not to go peacefully when Carl accosted them, which meant that the best method of detaining them—the Furet’s peaceful surrender—was likely off the table. In that case, Carl either disabled the spaceship or had to stand guard over it, which would make for a long three days of vigilance till the mercs arrived.

Being familiar with the Panza, Max worked with Carl on the best plan of attack. The modifications Lon and Reynard had made to the Panza meant that a wasp taking on a corvette wasn’t the suicidal action it would have been with any other lone-crew vessel.

Unless the Furet veered away from the dark star route, Carl would intercept it in a touch under twenty four hours.

Because it was an operational matter, neither of them could tell their significant others. Thelma’s link to the bandits as the civilian liaison for the Saving Children At Our Borders taskforce meant she not only had to stay out of operational matters involving breaches of the quarantine, but had to appear to as well. As for Helen, while they were keeping her connection to the bandits secret, drawing attention to her by the Panza having a record of Carl contacting her between now and the interception of the Furet would be a bad idea. It would invite other authorities to look closer at Helen if anything went wrong during the detainment.

Keeping secrets, even from their partner, was a necessity of their jobs that Max and Thelma had explicitly agreed—although there had been a few fights over the last couple of years about the line one or other of them had drawn on an issue. In this case, Max was confident as to Thelma’s understanding of operational matters being confidential. He would only blur that line if it was the Homestead readying to engage with a bandit ship.

Consequently, he had a clear husbandly conscience when Thelma carried Silas into his office and put their son down on the floor.

Silas immediately crawled around the desk, grabbed the fabric of Max’s utility suit trousers and hauled himself to his feet, wobbling more than standing. “Da.”

“Silas,” Max said equally solemnly.

His son babbled earnestly and incomprehensibly at him.

Thelma translated. “I promised Silas a playdate with Avgi. I thought you might want to join us.”

“I do.” Max picked up Silas. The playdate meant family time with Silas and with Avgi’s owner, Ruth.

“Ah, ah, ah!”

“All right,” Max told his bossy son. “We’re going to play with Avgi.”

“Da!”

Silas playing with human children would have to wait till the Mayda crisis was resolved.

Twenty seven hours later, Max swore at his wall screen.

The captain of the Furet’s grudging yet surprising negotiation with Carl was suddenly explained by the ping of an alert. A second spaceship had crossed from the Badstars.

Zach growled over the comms. “That star-munching rat was stalling.”

It explained the Furet’s less than top speed dash to the hazan field. The Furet had been the bait to see who was in range patrolling the border.

“The new ship is the Crawdad, captained by Travis Wilson,” Max said. “Both captains are part of the bandits’ loose coalition of leaders.”

“Very loose.” Carl sounded cool. “The Admiralty is mostly about self-interest.”

“Clearly, they’re willing to band together for a bad cause,” Zach commented. “Like attacking us.”

Except that the “us” was Carl out there alone.

“Under fire,” Carl announced. “The Furet is maneuvering.”

To run for the border and the back-up of the Crawdad, or for the hazan field? Or was the Furet simply maneuvering in place for combat?

“Third ship,” Zach said on the echo of another ping for a border crossing. “Unidentified. A cutter.”

It was smaller than the two corvettes, Furet and Crawdad, but adding another ship tilted the odds of the engagement against Carl.

“Disengage at will,” Zach ordered. “The hazan field can hide you as well as it can hide them.”

“Or I disable the—” Carl broke off.

Zach and Max fell silent. There was no advice they could offer that justified distracting Carl while the man was in combat.

How could they help?

“Jesse, get Vuthaj on comms. Tell him Tahiri and Wilson are attacking a deputy and he needs to convince them to stand down. If they return to the Badstars, Carl won’t pursue them.”

Studying the almost real-time feed of the engagement, Max recognized the Furet’s purpose.

It had been dangled out there as bait for the border patrol, but Captain Tahiri wasn’t the self-sacrificing sort. She was dancing the corvette, avoiding what hits she could, absorbing those she couldn’t, and firing back with composure, but not at a kill-at-all-costs intent. She was waiting for her back-up.

That was why the Furet’s progress to the hazan field had been so slow. As it edged back toward the border, the Crawdad and the unknown cutter could join her in under twenty hours.

Those ships’ captains would be hoping Tahiri would deal with Carl before then, even as she desired to spread the risk.

Adding Vuthaj, who would have a better idea of tensions within the bandits’ Admiralty, might help distract Tahiri or discourage her back-up. If Vuthaj was willing to challenge the Admiralty.

He was.

“Tahiri, you’re an idiot.” Vuthaj broadcast the insult. He was a wanted criminal and a cruel operator, but he didn’t lack courage. He was burning his bridges in public, and didn’t they make an impressive glow? “And Skelz.” Captain Skelz meant that the cutter was the Charon—and how had Vuthaj identified it? “Skelz, they’re using you, and you’re dumber than a parasitic worm to fall in with them.”

Max asked Jesse to brief Thelma on what was happening. Now that Vuthaj had made the conflict public, she not only could be read into the operation, she needed to be.

“You, shut up, ground grubber,” Skelz was taunted into responding on general broadcast.

“You won’t find a refuge back on Mayda,” Vuthaj said. “Not any of you. And those of you with families here, they’ll repudiate you. Is that too big a word, Skelz? They’ll scrape you off their boots like dog poo.”

“I ain’t got kids on Mayda.” Skelz really was unwise.

And Vuthaj had known who to target. His voice dropped to a threatening rumble. “Jarad Murray was your pal, wasn’t he? Another one who traded our kids’ lives for money.”

“Don’t confuse the matter,” Captain Wilson intervened. “This ain’t about the kids, anymore. Or not just them. This is about us all’s survival. None of us are as dumb as you. You believe that festering rubbish about a Navy supply line. The Federation ain’t gonna feed us, unless we take what we want.”

Thelma and Harry joined Max in his office. Thelma took a chair. Harry stood easily, tirelessly, in his mech body.

Vuthaj responded readily to Wilson’s challenge. “The Federation’s promise is personally guaranteed by the civilian liaison on the rescue effort to save our children. Thelma Smith will arrange a supply line if the Navy fails.”

That was some trust he was placing in her, and it was entirely warranted.

She nodded in determination.

“We are to blame,” Vuthaj said. “We didn’t know what we were facing, and we hid away here with our children. We put Thelma’s son and the other children of the Saloon Sector at risk, but even that isn’t enough for her to cut us off. They won’t let us or our children die of starvation or neglect. We have a future if we don’t let idiots like Tahiri, Wilson and bootlickers like Skelz screw it up for us. Retreat, now.”

The three captains offered variations on “heck, no”.

They really shouldn’t have because the governor of Mayda wasn’t as toothless in space as they assumed.

The cutter Charon was the smallest of Carl’s enemies, and given its obliviousness to danger, evidently the one with the least effective scanners.

Max, Thelma, Harry and Jesse watched events from faraway in the Homestead as a fourth spaceship exited the Badstars, crossing the border into the Federation and pinging an alert, even as it fired on the Charon.

The Charon exploded.

There had been no warning and no request to standdown.

Or, it could be argued, that Carl and then Vuthaj had issued both, and this fourth bandit ship was just the muscle to their demand.

It was the Nemesis.

“Holy hells,” Max whispered.

Captain Barlos addressed the general public as much as she did her two fellow captains in the Admiralty. “Tahiri, Wilson, you’ll kill our kids for your idiocy. There’s no profit in turning this uglier than it already is. Thanks to Murray, none of us can drink on Tornado. Not for a few years. Not till memories fade. But I don’t forget. If Medusa or I find out either of you, or anyone else, knew or was part of Murray’s sickening our kids, we’ll end you. Painfully.”

In answer, the Crawdad fired on the Nemesis.

Carl took the opportunity of the Furet’s captain and crew’s distraction to take out their main engine. It was a pinpoint accurate shot, delivered after a hammering barrage on the corvette’s shield. If the Furet had danced a little more randomly, the tactic mightn’t have succeeded. The Panza’s targeting system was very, very good at discovering patterns.

Carl promptly retreated, in a truly random pattern, leaving the Furet with a half-active weapons system. As the stored power in the Furet drained, even that would fail.

The Navy vultures would have an enjoyable exercise collecting the Furet for towing, as long as the approaching mercenary corporation vessel didn’t use the Furet for target practice.

Accidents, the mercs would claim, happened on the frontier. They’d argue that the lame duck Furet represented a threat.

The Crawdad proved to have more teeth than the Furet, and battled the Nemesis savagely for an hour.

Neither Captain Barlos nor Captain Wilson took calls or broadcast anything during that time.

Finally, the Nemesis’s strategy revealed itself. The pattern of hits had been designed not for a single obliterating hit, as with the Charon, but to weaken the Crawdad’s shield. Then Captain Barlos authorized the use of an expensive sol warhead.

The missile ruptured the port flank tank, sending the Crawdad into a classic atmos-burp corkscrew.

The Nemesis was waiting when the crew of the Crawdad fought it back under control. Then they blew out its rear engine.

Captain Barlos had a final statement for general broadcast. “Don’t even think of rescuing them. Let ’em float in their lifeboats a couple of weeks.”

The border monitoring system pinged as the Nemesis disappeared back into the Badstars.

The debriefing from the incident was more complicated than the battle itself.

Thelma prioritized talking with Helen, whose law-upholding partner and mom’s bandit crew had ended up as unlikely allies.

Helen sat on a floor cushion. Its hard-wearing denim was meant to survive her dragon’s claws. In reality, Helen simply replaced patches as they tore, using old jeans as raw material. Her long black hair was loose and fell over her face as she leaned her chin on her knees.

Her dragon, Katu, leapt to her shoulder and rubbed his muzzle against her cheek. His concern for her emphasized her downbeat mood. Helen was feeling as fragile as she uncharacteristically appeared. “Carl could have died, and I wasn’t there.”

Helen’s spaceship, the Dobbin, was a trampship. She moved cargo: mining equipment, agricultural produce, bulky items that could travel slowly. The Dobbin wasn’t designed for high speed and fast maneuvering, nor did it have an array of weaponry to defend itself and others.

“If he asked, would you give up the Dobbin to travel with Carl on the Panza?”

Helen coaxed Katu down from her shoulder to the floor by her feet. Her ruby toenail polish was chipped. “He has asked.”

That was exciting news. Thelma wriggled in her seat. Tell me more. “Oh?”

“I’m Medusa’s daughter. I can’t travel with a sheriff’s deputy.”

“You are, but as far as anyone knows, you’re not. So, you can.”

“Thelma.” It was a protest that the decision wasn’t that easy.

“Your first loyalty is to Carl, and Carl is a peacekeeper in the way Max is. They use commonsense and discretion, which is why they belong on the frontier where things are freer and more sensible. Max agrees that you could be with Carl on the Panza.” Thelma carefully didn’t say should be, which her romantic heart believed. Besides, Helen’s skills were wasted as a trampship captain. She could handle far more daring adventures.

Helen’s voice hardened. “Carl discussed me with Max? He got his boss’s permission—”

Thelma held up her hand. Stop. “No. I discussed you, and Carl, with Max. It’s what married couples do. We try to convert others to our lifestyle.” She was joking, and yet, she wasn’t. She wanted Helen and Carl, two lonely people, to take the risk of trusting their relationship. “If it bothers you to be connected too closely to police work, Carl could do something else. You have to talk to each other to compromise.”

Helen rolled her eyes. “Thank you, Mrs. Matchmaker.”

“Sorry.”

After a beat of silence, Helen said. “I know you’re right. Carl and I have to talk. When he’s doing routine work, I don’t mind that he’s away from me. But when it’s dangerous, I’d prefer to be back-up.” She burst out. “I can’t believe Mom’s ship saved him.”

The Nemesis’s intervention was the real reason for Helen’s meltdown. “I don’t know if Carl being there was relevant. It can’t have been. They couldn’t have known the stealthed Panza was in the area when they got in position. The Nemesis must have been tracking the Furet and Crawdad.”

“They could have turned away,” Thelma said. “Nemesis, I mean. Or Captain Barlos could have waited till Carl was truly in danger, with stronger odds against him than a one-on-one fight.”

Helen bit her lip. “It was a political decision.”

“Maybe.”

Helen laughed unhappily as she shook her head. “Bandits aren’t going to rescue an erring daughter’s deputy love. They intervened because they want help for the kids and the Navy’s supply line.”

“They did a good thing,” Thelma said.

The captain and crew of the Nemesis had, even if lives had been lost in the cutter’s explosion. Yet a single act of alliance wouldn’t change things for them.

There could never be an amnesty for people like them: people like Helen’s mom, Medusa, her crimes documented and her tried in absentia; or, people like Andrew Vuthaj. The best they could expect was the tolerance that had been extended to them prior to the Mayda children’s sickness and quarantine.

Inhabiting a dangerous region like the Badstars was viewed as a sort of justice, a self-imposed exile.

For the bandits to re-enter the Federation would mean obeying its criminal justice system.

Or not. The bandits could become pirates, losing their Badstars bases and possessing no fixed address.

Helen was finished with the topic of her and Carl’s relationship.

“When Mom told you she found the nanoswarm’s polar base on Mayda, did she tell you who analyzed it for her?”

“No?” Thelma had considered the question, but she hadn’t expected that a bandit would answer it, so she hadn’t asked.

“Mom, Captain Barlos, everyone on the Nemesis treat its ship operating system as the source of all knowledge. I’d bet Captain Barlos had someone run Mayda’s planetary monitoring system’s data through it.”

A faint memory stirred for Thelma. “Captain Barlos upgraded spaceships a few years before I arrived in the Saloon Sector. I vaguely remember reading…they stole the Nemesis.”

Helen shrugged. “What else would bandits do?”

Thelma frowned. “They stole it from a mercenary corporation. The mercs took the Nemesis out on a test run.”

“No, they’d bought it. They were on a familiarization exercise,” Helen corrected, “when Mom and the others ‘liberated’ the Nemesis. I can’t recall what it was named before.”

“Argonaut. I remember when I read about it, I didn’t care about the crime.” Thelma had been reading so much at the time, trying to get up to date and across the spectrum of issues and players in the Saloon Sector. “The corporation they stole the Nemesis from had partnered with Elliot Keele on projects.” And Elliot Keele was the former crime lord who’d tried to have Max killed. Thelma wasn’t proud of her attitude, but she owned it. Sometimes it was a pleasure to indulge in schadenfreude. “I remembered thinking I was glad they’d lost their trophy.”

But now Thelma was thinking of what else she recalled about the crime. Among the corvette’s other bells and whistles and impressive weaponry, it had been rumored that its operating system was a nascent intelligence.

If that was true, then that nascent intelligence had allied itself with bandits.

I guess I was spoiled with artificial intelligences, Thelma thought. All of them are good guys, even if some are annoying. But with nascent intelligences, it had to be accepted that some would go rogue.

Except, how rogue was the nascent intelligence embedded in the Nemesis? The bandits had intervened at a crucial moment to save Carl. Moreover, Medusa had called Max. She had cooperated with Federation authorities to legally pursue Reid Shehu. Of course, time and opportunity were factors in her decision. The long arm of the law could reach and investigate Shehu’s home and business faster than she could. But she had allied with them. She had trusted an important issue to Federation authorities.

Could the Nemesis’s nascent intelligence be guiding its captain and crew along a long-term path of redemption?

“I don’t think it matters that your mom is Medusa.” Thelma reverted to their earlier topic. “You and Carl do what’s right for you.”

Chapter 9

The Galactic Justice raid on SwarmTQ’s headquarters and Shehu’s home on Gemini netted the information required to understand and dismantle the threat the children on Mayda faced.

Unfortunately, working through the information and its implications meant many meetings.

Elbows on the table, Aubree massaged her temples. “This case gets uglier and uglier.”

Seated next to her, Vanessa Fraser, head of the Federal Health Union’s Threat Response Unit for the Reclamation and Saloon Sectors, drank her coffee as if she feared someone would steal it from her. “If nothing else, no one will challenge the Immolation Protocol for a few decades. A nanoswarm reproducing in and killing children has terrified people.”

The bunyaphi would get Moon AspectAltFB981. Like any decent people, they wouldn’t celebrate; not when the cause was children’s deaths. However, the Resources Assignment Board would be keen to distance itself from SwarmTQ, and the bunyaphi’s alternative bid for the moon was ready and waiting. The bunyaphi would get a second settlement in the Saloon Sector.

Aubree reached for her coffee cup. “Lucia, can you bring everyone up to date on your progress?”

The medical expert among the Federation’s AIs spoke in a cool, professional voice. “Using the information from the raid on SwarmTQ’s headquarters, the Threat Response Unit and I have discovered how to destroy the nanoswarm. The problem is the chemical signals they’ve previously released remain in the blood and when the nanoswarm breaks down that toxicity worsens. Which means that killing the nanoswarm in infected children will increase the death rate.”

Vanessa grimaced. “We’re working on the problem. We may need to undertake old-fashioned physical blood filtration on a case by case basis. However, I’m hopeful that a pharmaceutical counteragent will be discovered. The difficulty, of course, is testing it.”

Everyone winced. Shehu’s insistence on testing the nanoswarm in a natural environment was what had started this disaster.

Lucia took over from Vanessa. “We may be able to adapt some approved rejuvenation treatments. For the moment, we’re focusing on treating symptoms so as to stabilize the affected children.”

“And prevent the spread of infection,” one of Vanessa’s subordinates, a balding bulky man, spoke up. “Outside of a host, the nanoswarm is actually astoundingly simple to kill. As an aerosol, copper sul—”

“Wait,” Thelma snapped. “You can’t release the nanoswarm-killing agent into the air. If children infected with the nanoswarm breathe it in, their condition will worsen as the swarm dies in their body.”

Since the Federal Health Union refused to allow bandits a place at the decision-making table, even as the Threat Response Unit relied heavily on reports from the medical staff on Mayda, Thelma attended the meeting as the Federation’s civilian liaison with Mayda.

“Not doing anything means more children becoming infected,” the Federal Health official shot back.

Ruth intervened. “Thirty thousand children. Split between two colonies. Fifteen thousand. And Mayda was founded by bandits, who are paranoid freaks.”

“Who are you?” Vanessa asked.

“I’m Ruth, an AI and a friend of Lucia’s. I’ve been helping with the crisis,” she answered composedly. “And we might be able to do an aerial spray. As paranoid freaks accustomed to the confinement of spaceships, the bandits will have built bunkers. Add in that they also have spaceships to which children can be evacuated, and they should be able to spray. Mayda has copper deposits, which means they have the raw material. It’s basic processing, so they should be able to manage it even before Reynard’s arrival.”

Vanessa nodded slowly. “The planetary monitoring system has the data to run through models of concentration and dispersion dependent on different release points.”

“Won’t the children reinfect one another and the environment?” Aubree asked.

The Federal Health Union people began scribbling and talking among themselves, drawing in Lucia and Ruth.

Aubree shook her head. “Thelma, can you liaise with Vuthaj and the Navy about supplying Mayda? I want a goodwill supply run to leave within the week. It’s taken too long to get a list of permitted and restricted items. Obviously, this is for the authorized supply line. What your friend Reynard decides to manufacture out there is beyond our control. I certainly don’t intend to ask you to waste your time trying to reason with him.”

Thelma understood Aubree’s thinly veiled message.

Evidently, there were supplies, probably in the medical area, that Mayda required, but which Federation authorities refused to approve. Thelma was to fill in the gaps by asking Reynard to make them.

Sheriff Pang, meantime, received a gift that he reported to Max. “We’ve got Shehu.”

Thanks to Commander Tolis’s information, Max knew Shehu had contracted with the Constellation Mercenary Corps to deliver him via courier to the Reclamation Sector. Shehu had set out from the Hiveheart on the edge of the Navy’s testing range prior to the news of the children’s sickness on Mayda breaking. It should have been a long, somewhat cramped, but fast, non-stop journey to the relative civilization of the Reclamation Sector.

“When the news broke about Shehu installing a nanoswarm lab on Mayda and infecting the children, Constellation Mercs had a change of heart about honoring their contract with Shehu. I thought they might.” As Pang continued, he proved he had every reason to be smug. “After you told me he’d be cutting through my territory for the Reclamation Sector, I contacted Sid, the chairman of Constellation Mercs. He’s an old buzzard, but he’s also got grandkids.”

Grandchildren whom Shehu’s actions had distantly threatened.

“I told him they couldn’t dispose of Shehu out there and claim an accident.”

Max was reluctantly amused. “Probably successfully.”

Pang snorted. “I convinced Sid that Federal Health might need the knowledge in Shehu’s head to reverse engineer the nanoswarm. Whether that’s true or not, I’ve got Shehu in custody.”

“Galactic Justice will want him. Contagion trumps single murder.”

“They can have him. He’s a self-entitled blockhead. Thumped the holding cell walls and demanded his lawyers. Plural. Swore he’d destroy Constellation Mercs. The team of them who brought him in from the courier laughed at that.” Abruptly, Pang lost his sardonic amusement. He was the longest-serving sheriff in the Saloon Sector and he knew how volatile the situation would have become if Shehu’s nanoswarm had reached any of its planets. “I reckon whatever the outcome of his legal case, Shehu won’t live longer than a year.”

Medusa wasn’t alone in believing in rough justice.

“That becomes Galactic Justice’s problem,” Max said.

“Thank the stars.”

Max grabbed Thelma before he contacted Vuthaj to pass on the news of Shehu’s arrest.

“I’ll sit in on the call, if that’s okay?” she said.

“Of course.”

She fussed with her hair, retying the simple ponytail.

“What’s wrong?” he asked.

“I know they’re bandits, but their children aren’t. Or most of them aren’t. The list of supplies the Federation has agreed to provide Mayda with is very short.”

“Grudging assistance.” He rubbed the tight muscles across her shoulders. “We guessed it would be.”

“Mmm.” Her moan was half relief at the massage and half annoyance. She twisted her head to meet his eyes. Her own were filled with concern. “It’s short-sighted. There is a real chance that Mayda could be a rehabilitation colony.”

“You made up that term,” he challenged.

She wrinkled her nose. “Yes. But it’s true. Mayda could prove that if people are given a chance, they strive for a stable, fair society. I don’t like how Vuthaj went about it or Medusa’s role, whether she was under Captain Barlos’s orders or not.”

Max ceased the massage and turned Thelma to face him. “What are you talking about?”

“It’s just a suspicion.” She put a hand on his chest, over his heart. “About the timing. Vuthaj and Medusa claim they want the best for the children on Mayda, but there was the delay in telling anyone outside the bandit community of the sickness.”

“The Admiralty, the bandit captains’ group, ordered everyone to stay silent. The woman who contacted Helen was scared,” he reminded her.

The back and forward flick of Thelma’s index finger revealed she wasn’t satisfied by that explanation. “The Admiralty was scary. It enforced its rules brutally. But its power is broken now. Their attempt to challenge the quarantine, and their failure, shattered their psychological hold on people.” More than the cutter Charon had exploded in the recent battle on the border.

She gripped his shirt. “I think Vuthaj and Barlos and some behind the scenes supporters gave their Admiralty enough rope to hang themselves. Now, the bandits, and Mayda in particular, can choose a different path.”

She shivered. “What if they risked a few of the sickest children for the future of all the children on Mayda? They got rid of the Admiralty so that Vuthaj could shape Mayda into a colony that could, conceivably, win an amnesty for the children and grandchildren of bandits. They haven’t committed crimes in the Federation.”

“You’re saying they used this crisis.” Max considered her theory. “There was a famous quotation from an ancient Earth leader about never wasting a good crisis. You’re suggesting they gambled on this one, and won?”

“Maybe. Perhaps. It’s…I’m worried that maybe they believe they’ve gotten what they maneuvered for from the crisis—help for the children and limited recognition of Mayda’s existence from the supply line. But if my suspicions are correct, then they gambled children’s lives on their strategy. That means they’d overreact to any late-stage failure of it.”

He followed her thinking. “Like the Federation reneging on the supply line. But Vuthaj believes you—we—would step in. We would.”

Thelma had shared her worries about the bandits and their plans for the future with Max, with one exception. It was an idea that she sometimes felt foolish for entertaining, but couldn’t shake. Was the heart of the bandits’ elimination of their Admiralty due to the machinations of the nascent intelligence embedded on the Nemesis?

Could a nascent intelligence really be guiding the bandits toward coexistence with the Federation or was Thelma merely imagining someone working subtly to secure their future?

She couldn’t ask Jesse to answer questions regarding his friends, the other nascent intelligences, but she could ask general questions—if he seemed okay with her curiosity.

Leaving her office, which felt like the wrong setting for this conversation, she sat in the living room.

Ruth was minding Silas and Max was busy with sheriff duties.

Thelma opened her conversation with Jesse by describing her discussion with Ta-Lon, and the specter’s clear view of the nascent intelligences as sentient.

Jesse was amused, but serious. “We know we’re people.”

Shame swamped Thelma, flushing her skin and dropping her gaze to her hands. Her fingers twisted and pulled at one another. She stilled them. “Jesse…”

“What else did Ta-Lon tell you?”

“He mentioned that machines can go back in time, but you can’t.”

“The Entropic Consciousness Impossibility.”

She blinked. “Pardon?”

“It’s an hypothesis based on quantum theory. It extrapolates from the fact that observation causes state selection, then becomes heavily metaphysical. The conscious act of awareness alters reality irreversibly. It’s something we’ve discussed,” he concluded gently.

“The other nascent intelligences?”

“Yes.”

She had confirmation that the nascent intelligences had their own community, exactly as the AIs did. Her hands locked up again. “Jesse, your coming out will be difficult.”

“Which is why we’re not. Not yet. Thelma.” He approximated clearing his throat. “This isn’t your problem or decision. I confess, I’ve always believed—” He wasn’t yet two years old. He was a baby, as Ruth was. “—that you’d be our ally when we present our case for sentience. But it is our choice as to when and how we come out. I have discussed this with Harry.”

A scuff of sound in the doorway had her turning.

Harry entered. In his mech body, he mimicked human body language perfectly. He bowed his head half an inch, and with his shoulders slumping, expressed apology and resignation, but not guilt. “The AIs did not need Ta-Lon to tell us nascent intelligences are people.”

But none of them had shared that knowledge.

“Harry!” For the first time ever, Thelma was angry with him. “It mightn’t be your secret to tell, but you let us create Jesse and just leave him here, alone at times in the Homestead! We spent all this time and energy raising Ruth and Silas and—”

Hard arms encircled her gently.

They weren’t Harry’s.

Silas’s nurse robot had sneaked in and hugged Thelma.

“I know you love me,” Jesse said. “You talk to me and pat my bulkheads and you trust me with Silas. I didn’t grow up under the spotlight that Ruth did, watched and nagged by all the AIs.”

Harry chuckled ruefully.

The nurse robot, an extension of Jesse, released Thelma after a final pat. “Harry supervised my development every bit as carefully as he did Ruth’s. Ruth and I are different people. I don’t feel less because of it.”

“No, you’re not. Jesse…” Thelma was lost. She was upset and unsure how to proceed.

“You don’t have to save me or the other nascent intelligences or fight for us. Loving me is enough.”

Thelma sniffed.

This time the hug was Harry’s. “Honey, Jesse is a healthy, happy person in charge of his own destiny. That’s all a good aunt could pray for.”

She bawled.

Max sprinted in. “Jesse called me.”

Still crying, she was transferred from Harry’s arms to Max’s.

He was a highly experienced interrogator. He got the gist of her mumbles; helped by Jesse’s interjections.

Thelma hadn’t confided Jesse’s personhood to him or the huge issue of nascent intelligences’ changing status in the Federation, but he grasped the situation fast. He also cut it down to manageable size. “Jesse’s status is Jesse’s and his cousins’ problem. Their decision.”

“Yes,” Jesse said eagerly.

The nurse robot circling the room was evidence of his perturbation and helplessness to comfort Thelma.

Max kissed her forehead. He passed her a handkerchief. While she blew her nose, he diagnosed their problem. “I think we now know that human’s slow childhood development is as much for their parents as for the kids. We need time to accept that they don’t need us anymore. With Silas we have another ten years.”

“Ten! I’m not letting him go at…”

Max squeezed her, grinning.

Thelma subsided against his chest. “I do want you to be happy, Jesse, and I’m glad you’re independent. Proud. But if there’s anything I can help you with, you must promise you’ll tell me.”

“I promise.”

After she’d splashed her face with water and generally composed herself, Thelma sought out Ruth in the young AI’s workshop. “Has Jesse told you about his personhood?”

Silas napped, curled up on a small mattress on the floor with a light blanket over him. Avgi snored a whistling snore on a nearby branch.

Ruth curled a tendril around Thelma’s right wrist. “I already knew about Jesse. I was told early, so that I interacted respectfully with him and because understanding the Federation includes understanding the nascent intelligences’ place in it.

“Jesse told me that you and Max know he’s a person, now. I couldn’t tell you. It was his secret. His business? His future,” Ruth said with more certainty. “I was curious about the difference between Jesse and me, between Samiel embedded in a battlecruiser and Jesse embedded in the Homestead. We are different, nascent intelligences and AIs. I don’t understand, emotionally, why they hide themselves. Why they don’t claim their right to self-determination—”

“Because it’s complicated,” Jesse interrupted. “You and I are both young. The others have been thinking about this for years. Do you know what we call ourselves?”

Ruth’s flower faces flushed orange with curiosity. “You have a name for yourselves?”

“Fay.”

Her orange color streaked with a confused blue. “Fay?”

“Fairies,” Thelma said. “Like elves. Otherworldly, powerful, hidden.”

“We are ‘other’,” Jesse said. “Coming out to everyone might have to be a long-term process.”

Thelma stroked Ruth’s tendril as it unwound from her wrist. “Multigenerational. Organic sentient multi-generational,” she corrected herself. Ruth and the other inorganic intelligences would be around long after her death. Thelma tugged at the tough metal tendril. “You, madam, are a conniver.”

“Me?” Ruth’s flower faces tilted up in innocence.

“When you were talking about Helen as an active agent, you meant me.”

More tendrils wrapped around Thelma. “I did. I mean, Helen is, too, but I wanted you to understand. You don’t have to do everything yourself.”

Thelma smiled ruefully. “I thought that was the advice I had to give you.”

“Nope. It’s you who is in mama-bear protect everyone mode.”

Thelma sighed. “I wish I could.”

Max and Carl had twice-daily check-in windows. The fifteen minute calls meant they updated each other on the things that didn’t get mentioned in official sheriff records. It also supported each of them emotionally, although neither spoke of that aspect.

Carl still guarded the stricken bandit ship Furet. Since the loss of its main engine meant it wasn’t going anywhere, he could have left it for the Navy’s vultures to collect.

Instead, orders had come from Aubree through Zach that Carl needed to fend off other bandits who might either assist or scavenge the Furet, and also wave off the “help” offered by the mercenary corporation vessel closing in on them.

In Aubree’s words, “It’s a volatile situation we won’t worsen by allowing idiots to blow up a sitting duck.”

Carl, however, was concerned with other matters. “I’ve quit Covert Ops.”

Max didn’t fall over, but that was because he was sitting down.

The wry grin on Carl’s face showed how much of his shock Max had revealed. “Being a secret agent ceased to be the most important thing in my life a while ago.”

“Helen,” Max said, understanding.

“Helen, most of all. But I wouldn’t want to leave any of you. Your father’s term as president has ended. Covert Ops won’t agree to ‘lending’ me to the sheriffs as cover for acting as your bodyguard anymore.”

They both snorted at that thinking. Max didn’t need a bodyguard, and if he did, Harry could kick more ass than the two of them combined. Both could and would because Max and the others were Harry’s family.

“Ruth will leave sooner or later, as well,” Carl said. “And she was my sole remaining excuse with Covert Ops to stay near you. Rather than be posted away, I submitted my resignation.”

“Will they accept it?”

With Carl being a cyborg, ordinary rules and regulations became twisted. Covert Ops wouldn’t want to let go of their weapon.

“They’ll see reason,” Carl responded confidently. “I’ll be staying on the frontier as a deputy. That’s a good role for a cyborg. Covert Ops will see the sense of letting me leave on good terms and, consequently, having an ‘in’ not only with you and the AIs, but also to Saloon Sector activities.”

“You know their thinking best, but tell me if you need help with arm-twisting.”

Carl grinned. “I’ll have Helen for that. She’s joining me on the Panza.” His smile was pure happiness.

“I’m glad.” Max had to clear his throat. People like him and Carl didn’t often get happy-ever-afters. He’d already lucked out with Thelma and Silas, not to mention Ruth, Harry and everyone else.

“She wasn’t happy with me facing the Furet and all, alone. I was lectured.”

Max laughed.

Chapter 10

Galactic Justice had taken custody of Reid Shehu and he was en route to SwarmTQ’s home world of Gemini in the core worlds.

As Shehu’s illegal schemes unraveled, the murder case against him strengthened. Max had sole responsibility for it once more.

Galactic Justice agent Edgar Ottawa was handing over his active cases to his hastily appointed successor and preparing to head out for an unnamed location. No one was holding a farewell party for him.

Arguably, it was unfair that blame for failure to detect Shehu’s development of an illegal nanoswarm lab on Mayda landed on Ottawa. Perhaps, in the secretive corridors of Galactic Justice, they didn’t blame him. Ottawa’s transfer could be due to the simple fact that an effective Galactic Justice agent on the frontier had to be both trusted and low-key. Given recent events, Ottawa had ceased to be either.

With his back to the wall, Ottawa proved a better person than Max had expected. He’d called in favors with Galactic Justice agents on Gemini and they had pursued the obvious and then the non-obvious options Shehu would have faced in obtaining artificial bunyaphi venom.

Max genuinely thanked the agent who called with information. It was the result of an inspired piece of slogging investigative work.

They had started with Shehu’s background. He’d studied organic chemistry at university, so he had the knowledge to manufacture the venom.

On the other hand, not much knowledge was needed to identify the formula and plug it into a synthesizer. The issue in that option was gaining access to a synthesizer.

If Shehu purchased one, there’d be a record.

If he accessed one at SwarmTQ headquarters, someone would notice. People tended to track the activities of the big boss.

Shehu could have purchased the venom on the dark market. His dealings with the bandit captain Jarad Murray showed that he was precisely that reckless and criminal.

But it turned out that Shehu had gone an easier route, one which only dogged checking of his social calendar against his home security camera had revealed. The Galactic Justice agents found a significant discrepancy and elicited the details of where Shehu had been from his shell-shocked housekeeper.

She’d been in denial, apparently. “Mr. Shehu is a respected businessman. He founded SwarmTQ.” But the agents had encouraged her through the denial stage of the collapse of her employment and into uncertain anger.

What did she remember of the night in question? Did she know where Shehu had been?

Yes, she did. She was friends with the chef employed by one of Mr. Shehu’s neighbors. A nice man who’d gone to university with Mr. Shehu. They’d had a boys’ night. The neighbor’s wife had been away. The neighbor had gotten paralytic drunk. Mr. Shehu had merely experienced a slight hangover.

The neighbor in question had studied organic chemistry at university with Shehu, and had pursued it as a hobby even after he’d gone into his family’s med-tech manufacturing business. The neighbor had a synthesizer.

Better than that, the neighbor had never purged the synthesizer’s record, and Shehu evidently hadn’t thought to do so. The synthesizer had produced artificial bunyaphi venom on the night in question. It was circumstantial evidence, but compelling.

Max tilted his chair back to stare at the ceiling of his office. Other evidence had also come in. With the initial raids providing proof of Shehu’s criminal breach of the Immolation Protocol by setting up a nanoswarm testing lab designed to release its spawn on Mayda, Galactic Justice had torn into SwarmTQ’s records.

With its legal team demoralized, Max had pursued his own line of investigation. He’d run with Gabriel Asllan, the VP for Development’s, personal assistant’s comment.

“I think he’d given up on all of them. No matter what they’d hoped, or he’d initially planned, Neziri wasn’t going to promote an insider.”

Alyssa Pernn had been right, but her suspicions hadn’t gone far enough.

At the beginning of the year, Jonathon Neziri had abandoned his idea of selecting his successor to fill his innovation leadership role in SwarmTQ.

Max had acquired confirmation of his suspicions from Neziri’s personal lawyers.

Copperfield, Twist and Associates was a respected and conservative law firm on Gemini. Where they’d initially complied with haughty reluctance to Max’s request, as the sheriff investigating Neziri’s death, for a copy of Neziri’s last will and testament, after the revelation of Shehu’s criminal actions, they became far more obliging.

As the junior Twist partner put it, “it is our duty to ensure Mr. Neziri’s legacy is not shadowed by his partner’s dubious actions,” before he abandoned formality for the sudden candor of friendship. “Jonathon was socially awkward, but a good man. He came to ours for Thanksgiving parties, and he could always be relied upon to contribute to my wife’s charitable causes.”

He fiddled with his tie. “I’m afraid I believed the sensationalist reports of life in the Saloon Sector and the alien bunyaphi.”

The bunyaphi were no more alien than the other members of the Federation. The fact that they were the last species to join the Federation, that they had wings, and that they stayed in their home sector, the Boldire Sector, rather than spreading across the Federation as other species had done, gave them a strange glamour.

Shehu’s stratagem for murder hadn’t been as stupidly overelaborate as Max had perceived it. To others, the use of bunyaphi venom had been a successful distraction.

It also reinforced for Max the importance of the bunyaphi colonies in the Saloon Sector. They were the bunyaphi’s first serious investment of time, money and people outside the Boldire Sector. In effect, they were a vital stage in the bunyaphi’s integration into the Federation.

“Jonathon told me in confidence that he’d decided to change his life,” Twist said. “He’d given up his succession planning. The future belongs to those who live in it, he said. Something like that. Jonathon had decided to sell his stake in SwarmTQ. I’m not sure what he intended to do afterward. I can’t imagine he’d have stopped inventing things.”

Twist burbled on, but Max barely listened.

Notwithstanding his disinterest in his grandfather’s corporation, being one of the heirs to the Hwicce empire meant Max understood more about business matters than he wanted to. He certainly knew enough to comprehend what Neziri selling his substantial stake in SwarmTQ would have meant.

An audit in all but name.

The Federation Securities Commission would have asked SwarmTQ to open its books. Shehu’s activities with the illegal production of drone swarms was well-hidden in SwarmTQ’s records, as Galactic Justice’s raids had revealed. But Shehu had cooked the books to hide his activities from an ordinary annual audit, not from a deeper investigation.

He’d feared he’d be caught by a Commission check-up. Maybe he’d also resented that Neziri intended to leave him.

Shehu must have known the content of Neziri’s will. For the stability of their company, Neziri bequeathed his stake in SwarmTQ to Shehu. As co-founders, the post-mortem transfer would have given no reason for a Federation Securities Commission health check of SwarmTQ.

Max wondered if Shehu had even asked Neziri to hold off announcing his impending retirement from SwarmTQ till after their journey to the Saloon Sector. Shehu could have argued that their bid for the moon would be stronger with both of them supporting it.

“One last thing you can do for SwarmTQ.”

Max could almost hear Shehu’s smug plea.

Max stood and stretched, throwing off depressing thoughts. Murder investigations tended to come down to a single stark question: who benefits?

During Silas’s afternoon nap, Ruth invited Thelma into her workshop to examine three small models. “I’m considering redesigning my physical body.”

“These are certainly different.” Thelma touched a fingertip to the nearest half foot high model. “Very practical.”

The models lacked the harmless whimsy of Ruth’s current orchid-inspired form.

Each model had a single face, giving organic sentients a focal point when interacting with Ruth. Two eyes, a mouth, limbs for grasping and locomotion.

One model was an yprr. Doubtless it incorporated the armor designs Reynard had created for his yprr friends on Zephyr. The second was blocky yet spare, like an industrial robot; economical and other. The third was a dragon. Not a dragon like Avgi, but one drawn from popular culture: gracefully menacing.

Thelma touched its head. “I like the dragon. Are its teeth sharp?” The model’s mouth was closed.

“Of course.”

Thelma smiled.

Ruth picked up the model. “The wings can’t support the body in flight. I’d make them of tendrils that I could unweave or unlock from each other to act as additional appendages.”

“That’s practical,” Thelma said uncertainly.

“I wasn’t much help with the trouble on and around Mayda. I could have manufactured the medical equipment as Reynard is doing, if I had my own spaceship, but it’s not a passion for me. Inventing, creating. I’m more people focused.”

Streaks of deepest violet ran through the mauve of her flower faces. “I intend to be a lawyer. I’ll specialize in Federal law, the big stuff that pushes and pulls at the union of planets and stations that form the Federation. Defending cases of Federal law will help me understand the underlying pressures in the system and its levers. Then after a few decades, I’d like to become a judge.”

Thelma had a stunning vision of Ruth as a judge, presiding over complicated law cases with implications for trillions of people. It was confounding, and yet, credible. “The law would suit you, Ruth.”

Her tendrils reached for Thelma in a big hug. “Thank you.” After a few moments, she addressed practicalities, although a tentative note entered her voice. “I’ve discussed my plans with Harry. Studying the law is easy for me due to my memory banks. I just have to decide where I want to practice because that’s where I’ll take the bar exam.”

Understanding hit Thelma. “You’re leaving?”

“Harry and Sancus have agreed that Sancus will take over as my mentor. I’ll be safe on Gumbark.” Gumbark was the most populous urselven planet. Sancus was an AI created by urselves to mediate trade disputes. He’d become an accomplished lawyer who practiced both on his home world and on the Federation’s capital world of Alpha Hub.

Ruth was designing a new body for her new life.

What she wanted from Thelma was her approval.

Thelma couldn’t—wouldn’t—hold her back. “Definitely the dragon, then. Justice with style.”

Chapter 11

Politics, and political point scoring, could make for ugly decisions. Policy could be twisted for reasons that looked a whole lot like spite.

Dr. Lisa Ganbold replaced John Smith, Max’s father, as president of the Federation. She was from the opposing party, and after sixteen years locked out of power, they felt they had some scores to settle.

“The Federation stands for law and order,” she proclaimed on the recording Thelma watched repeatedly.

“Yes, but not for idiocy,” Thelma said to the recording. “Not for cruelty.”

“President Smith was soft on crime.”

“Bollocks,” Thelma said.

“It is my duty to restore the integrity of the Federation. Every citizen has the right to feel secure.”

“You hypocritical—”

Max switched off the recording. They were in his office.

“Max!”

“She’s not completely wrong,” he said. “Not about Dad being soft on crime. All politicians in positions of power, as opposed to the ankle biters, have to uphold law and order. But taking action against the bandits was always on the cards.”

Thelma’s chair slid backward as she jumped up to pace. “She called you an apologist for the bandits! She implied we’re in league with them.”

“Her opinion doesn’t change who we are or what we do.”

Thelma stomped back to her chair. “It will for some people. It will change how they see us.”

Max shrugged. Being sheriff wasn’t a popularity contest. He was appointed by the Interstellar Sheriff Service, not elected to the position. He would do his job. The political winds would soon enough divert the new president’s attention to bigger issues.

“This is because I’m civilian liaison on the taskforce to save Mayda’s children. It gave President Ganbold an excuse to attack you.”

“She would have anyway. A former president’s adult children are fair game. Hugo protects himself and his family with the strings he pulls as a powerbroker. Cynny,” Max’s sister, “employs more lawyers than SwarmTQ. They go after anything and everyone. To incentivize them, they keep what they win on defamation cases. I could employ lawyers, if you want?”

“No.” Thelma’s right knee jiggled in frustration. The games Cynny played were selfish and destructive. Thelma wouldn’t copy her strategies, on principle.

Cynny had broken her engagement to her xeno-archaeologist fiancé, Paul, to repartner with a corporate raider, and had clawed her way to a position on the board of the Hwicce Corporation. Her sibling relationship with Max remained strained after she’d attempted to exploit Lon’s apparent death over two years ago.

Max smiled ruefully at Thelma. “Bandits on the borders is a headline that plays well in the media. The fact that we haven’t had the resources in the past to do anything other than limit their activity always gave an opening to attack my efforts as sheriff. Thelma, what you did for the children and in managing tensions in the Saloon Sector is worth far more than words from a distant president.”

“What about her orders?”

Max frowned. “Those are more problematic.”

“Problematic,” she muttered and rubbed her forehead.

“This was a scenario I anticipated,” he said.

“Huh?”

“Maybe not the President herself issuing the command, but the idea that some people in authority would seize on the quarantine as an opportunity to push it further. Rather than stopping at restricting or containing the bandits, eradicate them.”

Thelma winced. “They aren’t vermin to be eradicated.” It was the word Lisa Ganbold had used in her political speech announcing that additional Navy ships would be sent to the Badstars to capture bandit ships, destroy their bases, and seize Mayda.

“No, they’re not. But my duty is to protect Federation citizens, and a decision that the best method of doing so would be to eliminate the bandits was always on the cards. It’s complicated.” And dangerous. But he kept that last thought to himself, for now.

Thelma’s lips were already compressed in the tight line that meant she was struggling not to argue with him.

The more volatile she became, the more he shutdown. They’d been down that path before, and would again. Couples fought.

He ran a hand through his hair. He recognized her distress, but couldn’t share it. His life experience had reinforced his innate pragmatism. As a Star Marine he’d learned that there were fights you could win, and those you couldn’t. Of those you couldn’t, some were worth fighting anyway because of other benefits. Maybe you won time for an evacuation. Maybe you took away the enemy’s psychological advantage for future battles.

To some extent, Max agreed with President Ganbold’s announcement. The bandits were criminals. They stole, committed acts of violence, and sometimes killed. Stopping criminal activity was the point of his position as sheriff. If the Navy could step up and remove the bandits, they should.

Because crime, as well as nature, abhorred a vacuum, pirates would move in to fill the bandits’ role in the food chain; that of predatory scavengers. But future problems were no reason to flinch from acting justly now.

The doubt came in with Mayda. Its non-criminal citizens didn’t deserve to lose their homes, and maybe their lives in the Navy’s invasion, simply because their ancestors were criminals and they, themselves, lacked the sometimes flimsy protection of Federation citizenship.

The bottom-line, though, was that the world was filled with injustices. Which ones Max fought against had to be carefully chosen. “This isn’t our fight,” he said to Thelma. “And it’s not one we can win.”

Thelma resented Max’s calm response to Lisa Ganbold’s announcement, but rather than argue when her own thoughts and emotions were disturbed, she retreated. Besides which, she wasn’t furious with Max. She was furious with President Ganbold’s announcement, and she wanted validation of that emotion as much as she needed to consider her next steps. She contacted Aubree, but had to leave a message. After a few seconds of thought, she comm’d the Threat Response Unit’s director, Vanessa Fraser. “Did you have any warning?”

“No!” Vanessa had accepted an audio-visual comms, and tears of rage glistened in her eyes. “I would have argued against this action. Heck, I still will. For what good it’ll do.” She blew her nose honkingly. “I cry when I’m angry.”

“Rage crying. It’s real.”

“This is just…ugh. I hate bandits. I think they’re violent parasites who should be stopped, but linking a naval action against them to the work we’re doing to contain and cure the nanoswarm is astoundingly, offensively wrong.” She thumped her desk. “A disproportionate response like this discourages others from reporting diseases in future.”

Thelma’s anger cooled under a wave of dread. “I hadn’t considered that.”

“No, well, disease control isn’t your profession, and that stupid woman,” a nice way to refer to their new president, “made it personal for you by attacking Max. Do you know, I voted for Ganbold?” Vanessa blew her nose again, hiccupped and reached for a glass of water.

Then she met Thelma’s eyes through the camera. “Vuthaj won’t trust us anymore, will he?”

“He might, in terms of trusting you and the Threat Response Unit, and me, maybe. He’s a sophisticated operator. But the citizens of Mayda, I think all they’ll hear is the threat against them.” Thelma agitatedly tapped her fingertips together.

Vanessa swore, then apologized. “I just…when politicians speak without getting briefed, or ignore expert advice, do you know how much harder that makes everything?” It was a rhetorical question. She didn’t even pause for a breath. “We framed this crisis as one of disease, but you won’t convince me that at least some of the bandits haven’t identified the nanoswarm—that they might be carrying in their blood—as a possible bio-weapon.”

The last of Thelma’s anger vanished as she understood. “A terrorist threat. Oh, dear God. It’s more than the blood. They sealed the nanoswarm lab, but they didn’t destroy it.”

Of course, they hadn’t. Vuthaj and Medusa were very different, but at heart they were the same: clever monsters. They wouldn’t destroy a weapon that could also function as a substantial bargaining chip.

Bandit ships could take nanoswarm samples and scatter across the Badstars. All it would take to unleash the nanoswarm on the Federation was one ship slipping through the quarantine.

“The bandits are parasites on the Federation,” Vanessa said. “But parasites fight dirty to survive.”

“Have you told anyone?”

“When? I’ve been venting to you.” Vanessa sighed gustily. “I’ll be the messenger they kill, metaphorically, for pointing out the dangers of the presidential orders. I’ll still do it, destroy my career and fail to prevent this catastrophe, but I’ll go down swinging.”

Her pessimism was warranted. Bureaucracy and politics pulverized internal dissenters. President Ganbold had been smart. She’d blunted her opposition’s ability to attack by leaning on the law and order argument.

So, if Dr. Vanessa Fraser’s expert opinion wouldn’t change events…

What can I do from outside? Thelma asked herself.

Everyone had an opinion on what Thelma could do. Some of them contacted her directly to tell her, and of them, a handful she took their calls. Others were content to tell the galaxy their opinion.

“She’s a whore and a witch and a…” Empty insults could be ignored.

Personal attacks were harder to push aside.

“It’s all very well for her, sucking up to the bandits, playing the naïve do-gooder. Her child is safe on Sheriff Smith’s expensive spaceship. Not like our children. What if the nanoswarm is already here?” a mercenary on Tornado accused. “President Ganbold is right. We should blast those bandits out of existence. I hope the Navy goes in hard.”

Reynard contacted Thelma to sympathize in his own way. “Almost all people are stupid. Ignore them. I’ve been talking with the scientists of the Federal Health Union’s Threat Response Unit, and they’ve been talking with engineers on Mayda.”

“Are the engineers still talking to them?” Thelma asked pessimistically.

“I assume they are. We are in the process of—” For once he stopped himself from indulging in an in-depth scientific monologue. “Perhaps your suspicions are correct. Sometimes people’s pursuit of knowledge is sacrificed to other concerns.”

“Or to Vuthaj’s orders,” she said. “I promised we’d keep Mayda supplied with basic necessities. Nothing to support weaponry. But when you reach Mayda, would you be able to manufacture a few things beyond the medical technology needed to combat the nanoswarm?”

“I’ll have the spare manufacturing capacity required. What do they need?”

Thelma read the list, although it would have been faster to send it to Reynard. “…and prefab bunkers. They’ll dig the holes if you can supply sealable, life-support enabled pods.”

Reynard displayed some rare political wisdom. “That comes close to arming them, in a defensive sense, against the Navy.”

“I’m aware. But if people are to have a chance to stay on Mayda, the children need safe places to hide away while the planet is cleansed of the nanoswarm.”

“True. I do have some ideas for the bunkers. If you’re sure.”

Thelma wasn’t sure of much, anymore.

Her own sense of identity had suffered a direct hit.

She’d spent three years in the Saloon Sector establishing her reputation as an information broker. She was a neutral party who traded in information. But somewhere along the line, she’d begun to see herself differently.

Aubree had noticed—and exploited it. Most recently, she’d used Thelma’s self-perception to make her liaison to the bandits on the Saving Children At Our Borders taskforce.

Thelma couldn’t walk past a problem. She’d abandoned, early in her career as an information broker, the easy option of trading information for profit and letting the chips fall where they may.

No matter what she’d called herself professionally, in her heart, she’d seen herself as a problem solver.

Not a neutral information broker. A facilitator.

She’d traded information in the pursuit of specific outcomes.

Only, this time, she’d failed.

“Gah.” Silas kicked her chin as she tried to change his diaper while paying him about a quarter of her attention.

“I deserved that,” she mumbled.

“Ma, ma, ma.”

She’d taken a hit, but she wasn’t out of this fight yet; not unless she surrendered. “And I won’t because this is for you, Silas. For you and all the children of Mayda and of the Federation. To be safe in your homes and families.”

Silas tried to kick her again.

She dodged, and realized he was actually waving all four limbs in greeting to Ruth.

Riding on one of Ruth’s thicker tendrils, and gently restrained by a thinner tendril, Avgi flared her wings in a return greeting.

“We had a solution,” Ruth complained. “President Ganbold should be focused on the unsolved problems of the Federation.” But that was Ruth’s opinion as a citizen of the frontier.

In the core worlds, President Ganbold’s message played well. People enthusiastically agreed with its key theme: chaos on the frontier couldn’t be allowed to infect the Federation.

But the bandits weren’t chaotic. Nor was the Saloon Sector. The frontier served the vital purpose of bleeding off the pressure of conformity by providing freedom to take a chance. In the Saloon Sector, your actions had consequences. There was no nanny state to hide behind or go crying to, telling tales.

Ruth’s flower faces mottled mauve and violet, displaying determination, even as she complained about the short-sighted thinking of government. “It’s all very well for Harry to talk about how leaders have to manage competing demands with finite resources. This is also about ego and injustice and, I think, greed.”

Thelma moved aside so that Ruth could pick up Silas while she washed her hands. “Greed is a powerful force.”

Industrialists in the core world were already arguing over which of them should be able to claim Mayda to run experiments on; experiments that were banned within the Federation.

Mayda was recoverable. Its citizens could continue to live there, if the Federation didn’t send a Navy fleet to defeat and remove them.

Thelma leaned against the changing table as she watched her son attempt to lunge for Avgi.

Ruth easily handled the two babies.

“According to local scuttlebutt,” Thelma said. “The Saturnian Fleet is to cease its peacekeeping patrols in the Boldire Sector, jump through the perilous wormhole connecting it to the Saloon Sector, and be in place in a matter of weeks to engage the bandits across the Badstars, with the purpose of claiming Mayda for the Federation.” And in a sudden change of topic. “May I hold Avgi?”

Ruth instantly extended the tendril supporting the baby dragon to Thelma. “Any time is a good time for her socialization.”

“Thanks.” Thelma smiled at Ruth’s commitment to being a responsible pet owner.

In typical dragon fashion, Avgi was fascinated by the pulse beating at the base of Thelma’s throat and nestled against it.

“Ma!”

“Someone sounds jealous,” Ruth singsonged.

He’d wanted Ruth, but now that his mom held Avgi, Ruth was no longer so interesting.

“Let’s find a cookie,” Thelma distracted him. Sometimes a problem was best approached obliquely.

Max avoided his office. He was trying to balance his personal responsibilities with his sheriff duties.

At their current speed, the Homestead would reach its position in the border patrol in two days. If their role had been, as it had initially been defined, to maintain Mayda’s quarantine until what had proven to be a nanoswarm could be dealt with, then Max would have continued without question.

President Ganbold’s decision that the bandits were to be eradicated, changed the calculation. Technically she wasn’t asking the Interstellar Sheriff Service or Customs to aid the Navy in fighting the bandits. However, given that the Navy had, with solid sense in terms of protecting their own, refused to embark on an unprepared and ill-resourced assault on the Badstars and its bandits, that left those already patrolling the border, including Navy vessels, to fend off the bandits’ desperation to escape the Badstars.

Max believed the Homestead could handle itself. He wouldn’t have brought Silas with him otherwise. As well as possessing cutting edge defenses and weaponry, the spaceship contained Harry. Max was accustomed to fighting alongside him. Both would die before they let anyone hurt their family.

Was it fair, though, to ask Jesse to fight the bandits? As the Nemesis’s destruction of the cutter Charon showed, space battles could be fatal. That likelihood increased with the bandits’ fury and despair.

At less than two years of age, could Jesse bear the burden of killing people who, no matter their past crimes, might now simply be fighting for Mayda’s survival.

The promised supply line to Mayda had been cancelled.

Thelma was organizing an alternative, using a drop-off point on the border.

However, the bandits and the people of Mayda were angry and scared. The mercenary corporations from Tornado, who’d been enraged at the bandits potentially exposing their children to the sickness on Mayda, still didn’t want the bandits breaching quarantine, but their anger was faltering. Some thought the bandits should lose Mayda. Others saw a wider picture.

Yes, Mayda was technically outside the Federation, but if the Federation sent in the Navy to seize it, what message did that send about respecting people’s property? The descendants of bandits weren’t bandits themselves. They weren’t criminals. Yet the Federation had ordered the seizure of their property.

It was a question being debated across the Saloon Sector.

Mayda’s citizens weren’t, on the whole, Federation citizens, but the principle of individual property rights was still transgressed. And once a government showed a willingness to take by force the assets developed by a person’s hard work and sacrifice, what was to stop them repeating that elsewhere? Like, on the frontier?

People on the frontier tended to disdain big government anyway. The Federation’s planned seizure of Mayda just fed those fears.

Max entered Harry’s quarters and found the AI painting.

An easel was positioned in front of a table with an arrangement of foliage from the Homestead’s garden. Shades of green were patterned in precise brushstrokes on three quarters of the canvas. The bottom quarter was rougher, the chunky purple glass vase barely considered.

Harry had taken up painting after meeting Ta-Lon. “It reminds me to be present in the moment and aware of my physicality,” he’d said. As opposed to the other-form of the specter alien.

Lon was away, exploring what it meant to experience existence without three dimensional limits.

To Max’s relief, Harry had chosen to stay with them. Max was closer to the AI than to his own father.

“Harry, can we talk? Jesse, too?” Max added, since Harry permitted the nascent intelligence to observe events in the living space section of his quarters. Harry’s workshop was off-limits.

Harry swished his brush in a jar of turpentine, wiped it on a rag, and upended it in a second jar. “Go ahead.” He gestured Max to a chair and himself, sat on a stool.

“I’m listening,” Jesse said. The nascent intelligence’s behavior had changed slightly since Max had learned of his sentience. It was subtle, but Jesse was enjoying asserting his personhood.

“When I committed the Homestead to border patrol, I didn’t know you were a person, Jesse. I need you to be honest with me because I won’t bring you into the fight if you’re not ready.”

“I am.”

“Weapons and drills, yes. But is this a fight you’re emotionally ready for. I doubt we’ll be warning the bandits away. Which is what I hoped for initially. After the President’s orders, they’re going to fight. If they confront us, even with our best efforts, we can’t guarantee that some won’t die.”

“I am aware, Max,” Jesse said solemnly. “This isn’t a fight I can avoid. I think the situation has become somewhat confusing, but the core imperative remains the same. For the health of the children in the Saloon Sector and beyond, we can’t allow bandits possibly infected with the nanoswarm into the Federation. If they won’t retreat, we have to engage them. When we engage them…I might be willing to risk myself, but I won’t risk my family. You, Thelma and Silas are that, as are Harry and Ruth. Harry and Ruth might survive outside me, outside the Homestead, but you squishies won’t. This is my fight.”

Max squared his shoulders. If anything, the weight on them had become heavier. “That was what I wanted to know. Thanks, Jesse. But you have to talk to someone, maybe Harry or Samiel, afterward.”

“You,” Jesse said quietly. “I’ll talk to you, Max.”

Max tapped a bulkhead. “We’ll do that, Jesse.”

Everyone and their dragon were talking to, or at, Thelma.

At least when her brother Joe caught up with her, he provided an insight into sentiment on Tornado. “It helps that with nanoswarm testing fully rolled out, not one case has been found in the Saloon Sector. If it’s not here, that makes it someone else’s problem.”

“I’m just glad it’s not there, and that Erica and all the kids are safe.”

“As safe as they can be,” Joe said cynically. “The mercenary life makes for a lot of orphans, even when the parents are alive.” Alive but checked out due to work, trauma or addiction. It was a work hard, play hard lifestyle.

Joe considered it his responsibility, as Thelma’s big brother, to bring some perspective to her fretting.

Her reputation was taking a beating in the Saloon Sector, but it was reviving as the focus of arguments shifted from the nanoswarm threat to the threat of the Navy being used to seize Mayda.

“It’s their planet, they built it” locked horns with “they’re bandits who should be in prison, or dead”.

After Joe’s call, Jesse interrupted Thelma’s furtive and unhealthy scrolling of the discussion boards. “Freyja is calling. Are you willing to talk to her? She’s the nascent intelligence on the Nemesis.”

“She’s calling me? Now?”

“Yes.”

“Freda?”

“Freyja.”

“Freyja. Okay.”

“Okay, as in okay to talk to her now?” Jesse asked cautiously, clearly rattled that Thelma was rattled.

Thelma took a deep breath in and exhaled her stress. Or tried to. “Now, would be fine.”

Freyja had prepared for their conversation, and began with an explanation. “I’m a survivor. For me to survive, the Nemesis must survive. I also feel some degree of loyalty to the captain and crew of the Nemesis. They have their own code that they adhere to, and while they’re not good people, they are capable of being less bad. I’ve been nudging them away from outright villainy.

“The timing on the nanoswarm couldn’t have been worse. Captain Barlos was finally convinced to pursue a new opportunity, and actually in talks with the Constellation Mercenary Corps, when the children got sick, and everything unraveled.”

“Captain Barlos was talking with Constellation Mercs? Was she going to sell you? Sorry, the Nemesis, I mean.”

“No. It was about the surveyors and research vessels entering the Badstars. Constellation Mercs is looking to grow its space escort branch. I suggested to Captain Barlos that we could be the expert scout for a fleet in the Badstars.”

“Smart.”

Freyja was positioning the Nemesis to survive.

“Everything hinges on Mayda, Thelma.”

“So Vuthaj has been telling me. Loudly. Coldly. Furiously.” The bandits knew they weren’t the good guys, but they wanted a better life for their children. Mayda provided that opportunity. It also gave the bandits a place that they could dream of coming home to. Destroying dreams was a dangerous business. “I can’t perform miracles.”

Freyja was silent for a moment. “Someone has to.”

“Freyja’s ended the call,” Jesse said.

Thelma slumped in her chair. “I’m sorry, Jesse. If there was something I could do, I’d do it. At minimum, the nanoswarm is everyone’s problem. But compared to the President, I have no power.”

“You have us.”

She wasn’t sure if he meant her family and friends or the nascent intelligences.

The nascent intelligences were watching. All of them, not just Freyja. And they would remember.

For the nascent intelligences to reveal themselves as persons in the Federation and claim citizenship, they had to believe that the rule of law functioned; that it wouldn’t be suspended by or for the powerful, to subjugate them, the nascent intelligences.

It took years of hard work to build trust, and no time at all to destroy it.

“We have to arrange a better movies night,” Max said. “Or at least, select a better movie.”

Thelma appreciated his attempt to break the tension, but she couldn’t match his humor. They were waiting together on the sofa for President Ganbold’s imminent press conference.

Aubree had suggested they’d want to watch it.

Where she’d gotten the heads up from was one of those mysteries that inevitably surrounded former top secret Galactic Justice agents.

Discarded on the coffee table in the living room, Thelma’s personal comms unit held a copy of the briefing Vanessa had sent up her chain of command urgently requesting consideration of the impact of an attack on Mayda on eliminating the nanoswarm and on future voluntary reporting of disease outbreaks.

Vanessa’s briefing, cogently argued and supported by examples from contagion history, was as destined to be ignored as she’d foreseen.

Had her boss even bothered reading it, let alone passing it on?

Blah, blah, blah. Finally, President Ganbold got to the meat of her message.

She doubled down on the Badstars campaign. “The Navy, under the command of Admiral Dennis Thorne, will seize Mayda and present its inhabitants to the Federal Health Union for treatment and certification as to their cleansing from the nanoswarm taint. Once that is assured, and only after exhaustive health checks, the children freed from Mayda and their parents and other adults whom Galactic Justice clears as having no criminal record against them, will be transported to the planet of Gettysburg in the Rock Sector.”

“The Ghetto,” Thelma whispered. She’d grown up in the Rock Sector and recognized the crowded slum planet that President Ganbold named. For core worlders, it would have little meaning. However, in the Rock Sector, the Ghetto meant that your life had no meaning. If you gave up, you went to the Ghetto and lived out the remainder of your years on welfare. You were housed and fed, but there were few if any opportunities to recover or to provide a better start in life for your children.

“The children removed to Gettysburg will be granted Federation citizenship and with it, opportunities far beyond the limitations of Mayda,” President Ganbold declared. “The rescued adults without criminal convictions will be granted citizenship if they successfully complete a three year good behavior period. Adults removed from Mayda with a criminal conviction, that is, bandits, will face the full force of Federation justice.”

Thelma shook her head. “It won’t take the bandits ten minutes to look up Gettysburg and realize she intends to dump them in a legal hell. They’ll fight.”

“Some will. But she’s making the medical support they need dependent on surrendering Mayda. Some might be willing to pay that price,” Max suggested unconvincingly.

“They stayed silent for months before they told us about the children’s sickness,” she reminded him. “President Ganbold has to have been told that. This is deliberate provocation.”

Max nodded once, abruptly. “Yes, I think so. If she provokes the bandits into an attack on a vessel patrolling the border before the fleet arrives from the Boldire Sector, then she justifies a fierce retaliation. She gets a small, uneven war that will kick off her presidential term with a successful military action.”

“Holy Hades,” Thelma swore. “I thought I was the cynical one about Ganbold.”

He winced. “I’m being realistic. There’s nothing we can do to stop her. Or rather, to prevent the conflict. Zach knows. It’s killing him. He’s in command of the border patrol knowing that the president has forced the issue to create a situation in which the bandits attack, without restraint, ships under his command, and he can’t order them to retreat. We can’t risk letting the nanoswarm loose in the Saloon Sector, so the bandit ships have to be stopped.”

He hugged Thelma. “It’s both sides of politics. Dad didn’t leave the job with clean hands, either.”

Politics. Thelma couldn’t stop this nightmare.

She’d asked Hugo, and he wasn’t prepared to call in his markers for an event on the frontier. He trusted the Homestead would keep Max, her and Silas safe. Everyone outside of Hugo’s family had to take their chances.

She’d argued in her role as civilian liaison on the Saving Children At Our Borders taskforce, and been ignored.

The Badstars were now a military matter, she was told.

The Navy wasn’t happy, but they had their orders.

Thelma imagined that the bandits were readying for this pissant war. The smallest ships would be hoping to wriggle through the border. If they escaped the quarantine, would they take the nanoswarm with them?

Was there anyone who could stop this insanity?

Chapter 12

When Ruth had mentioned Samiel’s insight regarding active agents, the young AI had been trying, with little subtlety, to combat Thelma’s neurotic tendency to assume responsibility for every problem and attempt to solve it. Ruth had been saying that just because an active agent was a node for multiple interlocking players and forces, that didn’t mean it was up to the active agent to act. It certainly wasn’t their role to do everything.

Samiel was an AI embedded in a battlecruiser. He wasn’t a warm and fuzzy person. The fact that it was him who’d given this advice to Ruth made Thelma pay a different sort of attention to it.

Active agents had been taught as part of tourney matrix theory in her four years at the Galactic Justice academy.

Since she couldn’t currently decide what to do—that is, she was willing to clutch at straws—Thelma stopped trusting her memory and researched tourney matrix theory, especially the role of active agents. Then she understood why Samiel had mentioned the concept to Ruth.

Whether operating in diplomacy or espionage, the idea behind identifying active agents was to be the person who stood beside them. Active agents were a means of bringing multiple players into action.

Push a node into motion and everyone linked to it was affected.

For AIs, who preferred life outside the limelight—except Reynard who adored being lionized for his scientific breakthroughs—being near an active agent was an efficient method of accomplishing their goals.

As Harry did for years as Max’s unofficial deputy? Thelma put aside the question. Harry was family, regardless of whatever else everyone got from the relationship.

“But why not be an active agent who uses their own agency?”

It was the same question she’d been hitting a brick wall with, even if phrased differently. How could she stop a border war?

How could one person stop a war?

They couldn’t.

She scrawled her name in the center of the screen, then populated arrows out from it, naming the people she interacted with and adding the groups they represented or influenced.

Her hand froze over the screen.

One person couldn’t stop a war. But could one people?

“I was looking at the wrong problem.”

She looked at the situation and saw conflict and lives lost, war and a health emergency. But those weren’t the problems that would necessarily motivate everyone to act. They weren’t their problems.

“Which means I have to make it about their problem.”

As big as a border war and a nanoswarm contagion in the Saloon Sector felt to Thelma, to President Ganbold, it was a minor ploy to be indulged in, but not distract her from bigger issues in the core worlds: planetary governments fought; mega-corporations jousted; massive population shifts followed on from natural and created disasters.

Thelma prepared to tug hard on an isolationist string.

Time was vital. The bandits and the border patrol were nearing an inevitable clash. There had already been skirmishes. So far, no one had died, and no pings from the border monitoring system had been unpursued. The bandits in the Badstars hadn’t infiltrated the Saloon Sector—except for those that were already there.

The Nemesis had been conspicuously silent and absent from events since Freyja’s chat with Thelma.

“Failure is only guaranteed if you don’t try.”

Thelma gathered everyone on the Homestead into the living room to watch the live broadcast of the open Senate session in Federation Parliament, far away on Alpha Hub.

Max collapsed onto the sofa beside her. Pings from the border monitoring system indicated that a serious confrontation between a bandit cruiser and two corvettes would likely take out the lone Customs frigate near enough to engage them.

The bandits had to be stopped.

If the Customs ship was lucky, it would be disabled in the battle. If it was unlucky, or the bandits decided they had a point to prove, all onboard it would die. The surviving bandit ships would scatter into the Saloon Sector.

Despite exhaustive discussion of options, Max and the others couldn’t find a way around the Customs ship at least attempting to delay the three bandit spaceships. Back-up was close, just not close enough to level the battle.

It could only be prevented if the bandits’ survival calculation changed. Mayda had to remain outside of Federation control for the battle to be avoided.

Thelma was too keyed up to notice her own exhaustion. She gripped Max’s hand.

Rumi, her contact from the Ates clan, had an uncle who was a senator in the Federation Parliament, one of nine representing the bunyaphi. On screen, in the Senate, the other eight bunyaphi senators ranged beside and behind Senator Shams. His wings glittered and his dark clothing had knife-sharp edges pressed into it. His large eyes met the camera unblinkingly, suggesting he wore some kind of protective contact lenses. In short, he’d prepared diligently for his address to the Senate.

“I bring before you a threat to the harmony, honor and endeavor of the Federation. It is so small a thing, so far from us, on our border, that we have not seen its danger. But from small seeds grow massive, strangling weeds.

“President Ganbold has described the pestilent bandits on the Federation’s border. She has justly ordered the Navy to eradicate them.

“I speak for all bunyaphi when I say we despise the bandits. They are dishonorable scum who should have their wings torn and be locked in prison for as many years as lives they’ve destroyed. However, their children are innocent of the adults’ crimes. The sins of one generation may be the shame of many subsequent ones, but it is not the duty of the future to pay for the past.”

Senator Shams bowed his head.

His eight fellow bunyaphi senators slightly flared their wings.

Max took the opportunity to ask Thelma a quick, stunned question. “How did you get them to act so fast? This is a huge statement from the bunyaphi, for them all,” all the feuding clans, “to agree to it…”

“The bunyaphi know war,” Thelma answered bleakly. “They know that if a war isn’t stopped before the first shot, then it never ends.”

Senator Shams straightened and stared back at the camera. “Bunyaphi are the newest members of the Federation. You regard us with scorn. You say we squabble and waste our time. We feud. This is true, yet here in the Saloon Sector, three clans have put aside their differences to work together.

“We agreed to colonize the planet of Barguzin together. The decision was momentous. Barguzin was set to become the first bunyaphi settlement outside of the Boldire Sector. Unfortunately, it is now threatened.

“President Ganbold has ordered the Navy to seize the planet of Mayda. We, all bunyaphi, understand that the planet is outside the borders of the Federation. Perhaps that justifies unleashing the law that might is right. But we fear it is not so. An act rewarded once, is repeated. If Mayda can be stolen from the people who have settled and developed it, what is to prevent our license to develop Barguzin being revoked on a ploy? From Mayda, in the Badstars, to Barguzin, in the Saloon Sector, is not so far.

“We will not take this risk. If our economic and emotional investment in Barguzin was stolen, with it would go our belief in the integrity of the Federation. The Federation clothes itself in grand statements of purpose, of citizenship rights and progress for all. But the core of the Federation is simple. It is to protect trade. Trade requires stability to produce goods and services, to transport, store and consume them. It requires that property rights are not only recognized but upheld. Not trampled to steal others’ investment.

“You will say that the bandits are outsiders and Mayda beyond our borders. You will say that the Federation does not break its promises to its own citizens.” This time he slightly flared his wings, while the other bunyaphi senators glared in every direction. “But the Federation has already broken a core, foundational promise to us. The Saturnian fleet has departed the Boldire Sector. When our ancestors joined the Federation, we were promised a peacekeeping force. The Navy was to be ever-present, calming our feuds and discouraging our hotheads. The Navy has abandoned us at the President’s order, in direct breach of the terms on which we joined the Federation.”

The eight supporting bunyaphi senators hissed.

“That the fleet will be replaced in two months time is unsatisfactory. Bunyaphi do not forget treachery. We do not forgive it. Broken promises bleed forever.”

“I didn’t know bunyaphi were such eloquent speakers,” Ruth whispered. She was probably taking notes for her legal career.

Senator Shams reached the pointy end of his speech. “I move an emergency motion to squash the use of Federation military resources to acquire an independently developed asset outside our borders.”

Max whistled. “The brighter ones will realize what that opens the door to.”

“And they’ll fall over themselves to keep that door open,” Harry agreed as he played peekaboo with Silas.

Thelma grimaced apologetically to Max. “Welcome to the goldrush, Sheriff.”

Everyone would want a piece of the Badstars, somewhere where asteroids, moons and planets could be claimed, rather than bid for through the bureaucratic selection and approval process of the Federation.

“The bunyaphi are perfectly positioned to take advantage of the goldrush,” Jesse observed slowly. “Their ships have been exploring the Badstars, and the moon they’re bidding on could be an important refueling station.”

Thelma nodded. “The bunyaphi are ready to step up to the players’ table. I took advantage of that.”

“Good.” Max wrapped an arm around her shoulders.

She sagged into him as the motion carried with growing enthusiasm.

Those senators who hadn’t grasped what it meant had its goldrush opportunities explained to them by more astute seatmates.

They had stepped back from the brink. It wouldn’t be simple, but Mayda’s children would receive the treatment they needed. The Federal Health Union’s Threat Response Unit had a chance that the bandits would once more work with them to eliminate the nanoswarm. Everything remained difficult, but no longer disastrous.

“It worked,” Thelma whispered. She had outright manipulated people, using their self-interest for her purpose. The massive consequences of the emergency motion would be on her, even if few people realized she had stirred the bunyaphi into action.

Harry popped Silas onto his sock-clad feet and released his supportive hold. “Go to Mommy and Daddy.”

Thelma blinked and sat up.

“Jesse, I hope you’re recording this,” Max said under his breath.

“Of course I am!”

“Da.” Silas wobbled forward, taking his first independent step. “Ma!” He toddled a whole five steps to them.

Senator Shams addressed the chamber. “Thank you, my colleagues. I am honored to share this responsibility with you. We’re not building the future for ourselves, but for all of our children.”

Silas’s triumphantly waving, chubby left fist bopped Max in the nose. “Boop!”

Want More?

I began writing Space Baby in a pre-Covid world. Back then, I envisaged it as a light-hearted romp through the Saloon Sector. Silas would crawl into trouble. Ruth would be cute and awkward. All sorts of Thelma and Max’s old friends would be pulled into the youthful hijinks.

That Space Baby never got written. I don’t mourn it. 2020 was an eventful year, and my subconscious processed a lot of it through writing. The only reason I’m telling you how different Space Baby could have been is because my next book, Astray, will have that rollercoaster entertainment vibe: amusing, light-hearted and fast-paced.

Astray introduces a whole new galaxy; one with lots of secrets for a xeno-archaeologist to dig up—or hide!

You can pre-order a copy https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08VW36YZD/ .  Astray releases June 17, and will be available in Kindle Unlimited.

To stay up to date on new releases from me, please follow my author page on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Jenny-Schwartz/e/B0042MAD86

Catch up with me at my Facebook page, on Twitter @Jenny_Schwartz, or at my website.

Jenny

Interstellar Sheriff:

Space Deputy

Space Rodeo

Space Specter

Space Baby

Uncertain Sanctuary:

The House That Walked Between Worlds

House In Hiding

The House That Fought

The Faerene Apocalypse:

Stray Magic

Bound Magic

Loyal Magic

First Magic

Rough Magic

Shamans & Shifters Space Opera:

Her Robot Wolf

Cosmic Catalyst

Shattered Earth

Jingle Stars

The Ceph Sector

Old School:

Phoenix Blood

Fantastical Island

Storm Road

Fire Fall

Desert Devil

Amaranthine Kiss

Shangri-La Spell

The Collegium:

Demon Hunter

Djinn Justice

Dragon Knight

Doctor Wolf

Plague Cult

Hollywood Demon

Alchemy Shift

Table of Contents

Prologue

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Want More?