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Chapter One




“Captain Kade, I presume?”

Nathaniel Kade of the Neptune Belle glanced up from his ramen bowl, fork halfway to his mouth. He’d stopped in the Angry Ailerons Diner on a combination of whim and instinct. He wasn’t terribly familiar with the Saturnian city of Gran Mount, but he could tell Angry Ailerons was one of those places where spaceship crews and potential customers naturally congregated.

The diner was ideally situated on a major pedestrian thoroughfare near the spaceport and featured a slick chrome exterior with a neon sign of a cartoonish spaceship featuring, yes, a pair of very angry-looking ailerons. It didn’t hurt that the rich smell of hot food had tickled his nose, prompting his stomach to grumble, so he’d decided “why not?”

The first thing he’d noticed upon entering was the job board hanging on the wall, filled with listings of available ships and unclaimed contracts. He’d filled out a pen-and-paper form, handed it to the hostess, and paid a modest fee to have the Neptune Belle’s available services posted on the board. After that, he’d decided to settle the issue of his complaining stomach in the traditional manner.

“That’s me.” Nathan set his fork down and pushed the ramen bowl aside. His muscular torso filled out his black leather jacket, which featured the silhouette of a hawk on the back, filled entirely with azure storm clouds and fierce lightning beneath the words neptune belle. He carried a pistol in the holster strapped to his thigh.

A faint veneer of stubble coated his strong, chiseled jawline. A small scar cut down through his right eyebrow, and a second one traced back from the corner of the same eye. He greeted the couple with an inviting smile.

“What can I do for you two?” he asked.

A young couple—perhaps both in their early twenties—stood beside the booth with a vaguely nervous air about them, especially from the redheaded woman, who wore a heavy tan cloak over surprisingly broad shoulders, which contrasted with the delicate lines of her narrow face.

The man seemed more at ease than his partner, standing by her side in a crimson vest over his cream-colored shirt. His orange eyes glinted in the diner’s dim light, hinting at the possibility of other divergent features. This wasn’t unusual on Saturn, which was famous—some would say notorious—as a melting pot for divergent peoples.

In contrast, Nathan was as baseline as they came, as were most Neptunians. His copilot, Aiko, had once compared his hair and eye color to “an interesting shade of dirt,” which, he reflected, wasn’t the worst brown thing she could have compared his looks to.

“My name is Zenno sen Monhu,” the man said. “And this is my wife, Safi.”

The woman nodded to Nathan with a shy smile.

“Zenno and Safi. Got it.” Nathan raised a questioning eyebrow. “And Monhu is . . . ?”

“A city just north of Gran Mount.”

“Ah. I see.”

“We saw your posting on the board,” Zenno continued, “and thought you might be able to help us out.”

“Well, that depends on what you’re looking for.” Nathan gestured to the other side of the booth. “Please, have a seat. Let’s talk.”

“Thank you, Captain.” The couple sat down opposite him, though the woman struggled to rearrange her long cloak. “We’re not disturbing you, are we?”

“Oh, no. Perish the thought. My ship’s listed on the board, after all. Now”—Nathan clasped his hands on the table—“what kind of services are you looking for?”

“Transportation. Just the two of us.”

“And the destination?”

“We’re”—Zenno granted him an apologetic grin—“honestly not sure.”

“Not sure?” Nathan frowned at the answer. “That’s not the usual answer I get.”

“I suppose not. You see—” Zenno began before Safi cut in.

“It’s my fault,” she blurted, her eyes glistening.

“Now, dear.” Zenno put a comforting hand on her cloaked shoulder. “You know that’s not true.”

“It might as well be! You’re not the one with the stupid ancestors who inflicted a literal pain-in-the-back on you!”

“I’m sure they had their reasons.”

“The hell they did! ‘Blessings’ of Divergence, my ass! They should have kept their mouths shut and stuck to baseline!”

“I’m sorry,” Nathan said, “but you two have completely lost me.”

“Here.” Safi shuffled out of the booth and stood up. “It’s easier to show you.”

She shrugged her cloak off, revealing what Nathan thought at first to be a second cloak covered in red feathers. But then the “cloak” split and unfurled into a pair of wide, luxurious wings.

Nathan quickly glanced away. Not because of the wings. He’d seen far stranger divergences over his twenty-eight years. No, he turned aside reflexively because Safi was topless under her cloak, and while the wings were a clear gift from Divergence to her ancestors, the rest of her torso was, for lack of a better word, abundantly baseline.

Nathan didn’t consider himself a prude, but he also couldn’t deny his parents had drilled certain lessons into him, and that upbringing had molded how he strove to treat women with respect.

Oh, certainly, he enjoyed the aesthetic beauty of the female form—either baseline or with some divergences—but he also believed the spectacle in front of him was best reserved for more intimate surroundings than, say, a public diner with windows in plain view of pedestrian traffic.

Zenno must have sensed his discomfort because he leaned in and spoke softly.

“It’s a cultural thing,” he assured Nathan. “You get used to it.”

“What?” Safi snapped, fluttering her wings. “You don’t have a thing against avions, do you?”

“No, ma’am,” Nathan replied sharply, still not looking her way. “I have nothing against avions.”

“Then what seems to be the problem?”

“It’s . . .” Nathan glanced to Zenno, as if asking for help.

“You just surprised him, is all,” Zenno told his wife. “Blinded him with your radiant beauty.”

“This again? Do you have any idea how difficult it is to put on a shirt with these damn things stuck to my back?”

“I—” Nathan paused in contemplation. “Okay, now that you mention it, that makes a lot of sense.”

“She prefers to keep them free and loose,” Zenno added.

“You don’t say?”

“Her wings, I mean.”

“Of course, of course.” Nathan nodded as if he’d been thinking the same thing.

“The problem, Captain”—Safi sat back down—“is gravity.”

“And her back,” Zenno said.

“Which aches all the time!”

“On account of the wings weighing her down.”

“Okay, yes.” Nathan began to recover now that less of Safi was in full view. “I believe I understand the problem. You’re looking to move to a location with lower gravity, then?”

“The lower the better!” Safi said.

“Though, not too low,” Zenno added. “Microgravity would be awkward for me.”

“I’m sure we can find something suitable for the both of you,” Nathan assured them. “I once spent a few months at an avion habitat. They seemed quite comfortable at 0.3 gees. Perhaps something similar?”

“Less than a third the weight would be wonderful.” Safi sighed almost dreamily.

“That said, you do understand I’m heading to Neptune next. I have room for passengers, but I’m also hauling cargo, and that job takes priority.”

“We know,” Zenno replied. “Your posting on the board said as much. We’re actually interested in a destination near Neptune, and we’re willing to entertain any recommendations you might have.”

“Not something close to Saturn?”

“Preferably not.”

“You sure? Neptune isn’t exactly a hop and a skip from here. It’ll take us about sixteen days to reach the planet, so if you decide to come back, you’re looking at a month-plus round trip.”

“We don’t have any plans to come back,” Safi said, slipping her arm through her husband’s.

“We understand Saturnian technical expertise is in high demand on Neptune.” Zenno patted the top of Safi’s hand.

“Always is,” Nathan said. “And?”

“I have a degree in deifacturing, as well as some hands-on experience.”

“Ah, I think I see where you’re going with this. You two are looking to strike out and make your fortunes, and you think Neptune might be the place to do it?”

Zenno smiled proudly, and Safi snuggled up closer to him.

“Got it. Say no more.” Nathan reached into his jacket’s inner pocket. “Let’s see what I can find for you two.”

He retrieved his copy of the Solar Almanac and set it on the table. The vlass tablet was an essential—and expensive—tool for any self-respecting captain.

He activated the tablet, and its visual-glass glowed to life with search fields and a keypad. They spent the next forty minutes reviewing one habitat after another, until finally coming to—

“How about this one?” Nathan turned the tablet around. “Despina. It’s categorized as a closed rotating sphere, but it’s actually egg-shaped, which’ll work in your favor.”

“Why’s that?” Safi asked.

“The interior is laid out in steps, with each level providing a different gravity, from one gee down to microgravity. The elliptical shape means the lower gravity zones are larger than in a sphere.”

“Oh, I see.” Safi sat up a little straighter and began scrolling through the almanac entry.

“It says here the habitat’s danger level is a one out of ten.” Zenno tapped the vlass with his finger. “Not a zero?”

“That’s more a formality than anything else,” Nathan said. “The Almanac Association rates all resettled habitats as ones by default. It doesn’t mean they’ve actually found anything dangerous. Despina’s been a frozen derelict since the Scourging, up till thirty years ago when the Neptune Concord resettled it. That’s when the government refueled its reactors and relit the sun-rod. Immigrants have been trickling in ever since, though most have come from Neptune itself.”

“There’s so-o-o much space still available in the low-gravity zones!” Safi scrolled through the entry’s pictures, most showing massive parklands interspersed with small towns splashed with light from the habitat’s sun-rod.

“How much would it cost us to move in?” Zenno asked.

“Nothing,” Nathan said.

Zenno gave him a doubtful grimace.

“It’s true. There are about sixteen million people living there right now. That’s roughly a person per square kilometer. On a habitat that sparsely populated, they’ll be giving away land. And”—Nathan tapped a passage in the summary—“there are dormant deifactories the Concord is looking to restart. Could be a good place for someone with a Saturnian degree to make his fortune.”

“Hmm.” Zenno rubbed his chin. He tried to keep his expression neutral, but Nathan could see the interest starting to curl the edges of his lips.

“What do you think?” Safi asked, squeezing Zenno’s arm.

“This looks promising.”

“Promising? I think it’s perfect!”

“Let’s sleep on it before we make a final decision.” Zenno faced the captain again. “Though, for now, I think it’s safe to say we’re tentatively interested in the trip. What now?”

“Let’s talk payment.” Nathan leaned forward and knitted his fingers. “I charge thirty c’troni per person per day. Since we’re talking about two passengers for sixteen days, that’s—”

“Nine hundred sixty,” Zenno finished.

“Right you are.”

“What about cargo?”

“The first ton of storage is free. Anything over that will cost extra. Volatiles and the like also cost extra to transport.”

“We shouldn’t have any issues sticking to free storage. What about the immigration process?”

“I’ll get you started with that when we arrive on Despina. No extra cost. Neptunian immigration isn’t too strict, so I wouldn’t stress over it.”

“Sounds good so far. Do you accept grattums?” Zenno asked, referring to the currency used by Gran Mount and its surrounding environs.

“I’m afraid not, and while we’re on the topic, grattums are worthless without a Saturnian bank to back them up, while c’troni have intrinsic value. That’s why they became the go-to currency across much of the solar system. If you want my advice, you’ll convert all your funds over to c’troni before you leave. I saw at least two banks near the spaceport, though you’ll likely find a better exchange rate farther out in the city.”

Zenno nodded, then glanced to Safi, who smiled excitedly.

“It seems we have a lot to discuss,” he said. “How soon will you need an answer from us?”

“I’m scheduled to fly out tomorrow evening.”

“That soon?”

Nathan spread his hands in way of an apology. “I do have cargo that needs delivering.”

“It’s okay,” Safi said to her husband. “I really think this is the one. Despina’s perfect for us!”

“Here.” Nathan took out a business card. He wrote his dock number on the back and slid it forward. “Here’s where you can find my ship, the Neptune Belle. You’re welcome to board any time before I leave, assuming you have the money. If I don’t see the two of you before tomorrow evening, then I’ll assume you decided against the trip.”


The Neptune Belle resembled a dark blue wingless swan with the cockpit jutting forward at the end of a long, tapered neck. The position afforded the tandem pilots excellent visibility above, below, and to either side via a forward-facing, frameless dome. The vessel was four decks tall, with its ramp open to a cargo hold that took up most of the bottom two decks. Four vectoring thruster nozzles—two aft and two at either side of the cockpit neck’s base—allowed the craft to accelerate in a variety of directions, depending on the situation.

The sight of his ship never failed to put a smile on Nathan’s face.

One of Aiko Pratti’s bodies stood watch to one side of the open ramp, her rifle hanging casually from the strap around her neck. She’d painted her newest chassis a pale blue with gray trim and gray stripes down the sides, along with a stenciled number 2 on the front, back, and on either shoulder. She nodded her triangular head toward him as he approached.

Nathan joined her by the ramp. “Anything interesting?”

“Nah.” The Jovian bobbed her head toward one of the dock’s entrances. “Just loading the goods.”

As if on cue, a forklift drove into the dock with a stack of heavy crates on its extended forks, each marked with the Gran Pharmaceuticals logo.

“On schedule?” Nathan asked.

“A little behind, but what else is new?”

“Yeah, tell me about it.” He chuckled, but his mirth quickly turned to scorn as the tips of the vehicle’s forks scraped across the Belle’s docking ramp. “Hey, now! You treat this ship like she’s your mother, you hear me? Like your mother!”

“Sorry, sir!” The driver backed up, raised the forks higher, then powered his way up the ramp.

“I swear.” Nathan shook his head and walked across the ramp, inspecting the surface. There were several new scrapes. “Has that idiot been dinging the ship up with each trip?”

“Cut him some slack. He’s at least trying to catch up.”

“Hmph.” Nathan planted hands on his hips, then huffed out a breath and rejoined Aiko. “You have any luck today?”

“None so far. Number Six wasn’t able to drum up any business. She’s inside performing the preflight checks.”

“And Number One?”

“She should be back shortly. You find anything?”

“Maybe. I got a nibble on two passengers. All it’ll take is a quick detour to Despina to drop them off.”

“Despina? Where’s that?”

“A habitat in orbit around Neptune.”

“Nice! That’s barely a detour!”

“They seemed genuinely interested, too, but I put it at fifty-fifty they get cold feet.”

“You think they’re high-maintenance passengers?”

“Didn’t seem like it.” Nathan gave her a crooked smile. “They might even enjoy your cooking.”

“Even better!” Aiko exclaimed, then waved at a new arrival to the dock.

Aiko’s Number One body looked their way and waved back. Her bright red armor was chased with gold and gleamed in the dock lights, though wear and tear had chipped the paint in several places, revealing glimpses of metal bodywork. She’d painted her triangular head a vivid shade of violet and wore a black leather jacket with the Belle’s emblem on the back.

Nathan cupped his mouth.

“Did you find—” he called out, but cut himself off once he saw the pair behind Aiko-One. He knew a Union inspector when he saw one. The stout man wore a long, beige coat chased with white piping and clutched a vlass tablet in the crook of one arm. His brass eyes swept over the ship, then followed the forklift on its way out of the dock.

A Union trooper followed the inspector, clad in an urban camouflage hard suit and armed with a rifle so big and nasty he half expected Aiko to be swooning over it. If she’d been organic, she might have started drooling over the weapon.

“Captain.” Aiko-One stopped at the base of the ramp and gestured behind her. “This is Inspector Lindu.”

“Lindu zaan Gran, Union Port Authority,” the inspector clarified stiffly, his cybernetic pupils focusing on Nathan. “And you are?”

“Captain Nathaniel Kade. The Neptune Belle is my ship.”

“Then it’s my duty to inform you your ship has been selected for random inspection. Is now a good time?” He asked the question in a tone that made clear it was a good time, whether Nathan thought so or not.

“My ship and crew are an open book, Inspector. What would you like to see?”

“Your cargo. What are you hauling?”

“Medical supplies. Mostly silver panacea, all destined for Neptune. I have a contract to deliver the goods to Bishton Medical Holdings at Port Leverrier. On top of that, I may have two passengers coming along for the ride, but they’re still maybes.”

The inspector navigated his vlass tablet with a stylus.

“Mmm, I see. Yes, there’s your record.” Lindu looked up. “Let’s see your cargo, then.”

“Certainly, Inspector.” Nathan extended an open palm toward the cargo hold. “Where would you like to start?”

Lindu led the way in while the trooper sat his butt down on a crate, rifle across his lap. The inspector made a long, slow circuit of the hold, grunting, murmuring, and otherwise vocalizing to himself as he wrote notes down on his tablet.

“Mmm, this one.” Lindu tapped a seemingly random crate with his boot. “Let’s take a look inside.”

Of course he would pick the crate at the bottom of a stack, Nathan thought with an inward, silent sigh.

“You’ll need to give us some time to unbury it.”

“Then best get started.”

“Right.” This time he sighed out loud. He turned to the two Aikos by the ramp.

“We’ve got this.” Aiko-One hurried past him and took a ladder up to a balcony where she could control the cargo hold’s interior hoist.

Aiko-Six joined her on the balcony, emerging from the ship’s upper levels. This body was a junky mishmash of limbs that seemed to originally belong to several different bodies, which was mostly true. One arm was longer than the other, and the spherical head appeared too heavy for the neck. Aiko had welded crude metal plates over gaps in the bodywork, which added to her junkyard appearance, though she’d then decorated those panels with paintings of different spaceships and places, in a manner similar to tattoos.

Aiko-Six slid down the ladder, then climbed up the stack to secure the hoist to the top crate. Aiko-One then used the hoist controls to lift the crate and maneuver it to the top of an adjacent stack.

Lindu tapped his foot and checked his pocket watch.

Nathan gave him a quick smile, then joined Aiko-Two by the ramp.

“Has he asked for a bribe?” she whispered.

“Not yet.”

“Think he will?”

Nathan shrugged.

“How high can we go if he makes a fuss?” she asked.

“No more than two fifty.”

“And if he asks for more?”

“Then we just sit here and ride out the full inspection. I’d rather lose the time than the money.”

“Got it.” Aiko-Two stared off for a moment, communing silently with her copies. “I’ve let the others know.”

“Thanks.”

“Hey, look. Over there.” She bobbed her head toward a young couple dragging a rolling pair of matched luggage into the dock.

“Well now,” Nathan said with a satisfied smile.

“I guess you made a more convincing sale than you thought.”

“Guess so.”

He and Aiko met the Monhu couple halfway to the ship.

“Safi, Zenno,” Nathan greeted them with cordial nods. “A pleasure to see you two again.”

Zenno brought his luggage to a halt. “We’ve decided to take you up on your offer.”

“Are you a Jovian?” Safi asked Aiko.

“Did my lack of squishy bits give it away?” she replied wryly.

“I don’t mean to be rude,” Safi said with a slight frown. “It’s just you hear a lot of bad things about the Everlife.”

“Then you have nothing to worry about.” Nathan pointed to Aiko with a sideways thumb. “She’s a deviant copy.”

“Yeah.” Aiko chuckled. “I couldn’t get back into the Everlife if I tried! And trust me, I wouldn’t. Bunch of troublemaking anti-meat bigots, if you ask me.”

“She also comes with a lot of opinions about the Everlife,” Nathan added, his eyes laughing.

“I see that,” Safi said, cracking a smile.

“This all you’re bringing?” Aiko indicated the luggage.

“Not quite.” Zenno pointed back the way they came. “We also bought a storage container from the spaceport and filled it up. The staff should be bringing it over shortly.”

“We’ll keep an eye open for it.” Nathan fished a folded contract out of his inner pocket and handed it over to Zenno. “Business first, then we can get you two settled in.”

Zenno skimmed over the contract, then placed it atop his luggage and signed it with a pen Nathan provided. Safi took the contract next and scrutinized it with more care than her husband.

“Um, Zenno? It says here they’re not liable in the event the ship decompresses and we’re sucked out into space.”

“That’s standard boilerplate,” Zenno assured her. “Every flight off Saturn will have that or worse in it. My trip to Kronya last year was the same way.”

“But sucked out into space?”

“The ship looks sturdy enough.”

“She is,” Nathan said. “The Neptune Belle’s been in the family for three generations, and we’ve taken good care of her.”

Mostly, he added to himself. When we can afford the right parts, which isn’t always. Now that I think about it, I really hope the reactor doesn’t start hiccupping on the way home.

Safi frowned as the forklift drove past them with another stack of crates.

“All right.” She let out a resigned exhalation and signed the contract.

Nathan took the papers. “And your payment?”

“Here you go.” Zenno retrieved a small but heavy case from his luggage with first union bank engraved on the top. He handed the case over, and Nathan opened it to find the glint of c’troni coins and cylinders in neat rows. He ran a finger across the tops, counting in his head.

“Perfect.” He closed the case and handed the money over to Aiko. “Welcome aboard the Neptune Belle. Next stop, Despina.”

“I’ll take your luggage,” Aiko said.

“That’s all right,” Zenno replied. “We can . . .”

Aiko took the handles of both their containers and dragged them into the ship without another word. She moved at a quick pace, whereas both Monhus had struggled with the weight of their baggage.

“She’ll take them up to your rooms,” Nathan said. “And speaking of which, let me show you where they are.”


The Neptune Belle ascended through the Saturnian atmosphere above the shell band, rocketing upward as g-forces pressed Nathan into the thick foam of the pilot seat. The pilot and copilot seats sat on a platform that jutted forward into the domed nose of the ship, providing an excellent view except to the ship’s rear and through the peninsula’s solid floor.

The Belle left Gran Mount far below, the sprawling metropolis twinkling down one side of a vast mountain range, shrinking on its way toward obscurity against the vast backdrop of the Saturnian shell band’s surface. They passed through a wispy cloud layer and continued to climb, higher and higher, the band’s retention walls towering a thousand kilometers to either side.

Saturn’s shell band girdled the entire planet with a lush, habitable belt over twelve and a half thousand kilometers thick. It held a fixed position over the planet, utilizing the gas giant’s natural gravity rather than rotation to keep the air in and objects in place with a surface gravity of 1.07 gees. The peak of the northern wall glowed, generating much of the surface’s light and heat, supplementing what the distant Sol could provide the gas giant. The gentle light was already fading, already drifting toward the megastructure’s shared nightfall. During a different season, it would be the southern wall’s turn to provide illumination.

The Belle shot above the retention walls, and the caramel clouds outside the shell band came into view. Gran Mount became a distant, gleaming point, obscured by the immensity of the shell band’s surface, with its 4.8 billion square kilometers of living space. Over nine and a half earths!

The Belle sped higher, and the shell band shrank away, a verdant belt of greens, blues, and whites bisecting the tan globe. Nathan reduced their thrust to a single gee and rotated the ship and thruster nozzles so the Belle accelerated up instead of ahead, since it no longer had to cut through Saturn’s atmosphere. The change in thrust orientation had the effect of turning the four decks of the ship back into proper floors as long as the ship continued to accelerate. They’d eventually have to turn the ship around for the deceleration leg of their journey, but that wouldn’t be for eight days.

“Did that inspector ever get around to asking you for a bribe?” Nathan asked.

“Nope,” Aiko-Two replied. “You?”

Nathan shook his head.

“Huh.” Aiko tilted her head thoughtfully. “An honest Union port official. Now I have seen everything.”

“Don’t get used to it.” Nathan unstrapped from the seat and stood up.

Aiko chuckled suddenly, still in the copilot seat.

“What?” he asked.

“Just thinking about an old job. Remember that one guy who was convinced Saturn once had these supposedly huge rings of ice and rock?”

“Oh, don’t remind me!” Nathan rolled his eyes. “We were on the job for, what? A whole month?”

“A month and a half, doing nothing but measuring ‘particulate densities’ and conducting ‘composition analyses.’” She tapped the point of her triangular head with a thoughtful finger. “What was his name again?”

“I don’t even remember. I must have repressed all those memories.”

“Doesn’t matter, anyway,” Aiko dismissed with a shrug. “Remember how excited he was when we found that half-meter chunk of ice orbiting the planet?”

“Uhh!” Nathan groaned.

“I know. What a kook!”

“At least he paid well. You mind watching things until we clear Union traffic?”

“Sure thing.”

“Thanks. I’m going to check in on our guests, then call it a day.”




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