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Chapter Fourteen




Aiko guided the Neptune Belle out of the airlock and into the habitat’s interior. She eased up on the throttle, and the Belle flew down the central axis of the megastructure. Alternating sections of island-dotted seas and ultradiamond windows stretched out ahead of them, converging against the cylinder’s opposite pole.

“There.” Vessani pointed over Aiko’s shoulder at one of the deifactories.

“I see it.” Aiko spun the ship, orienting that section of the cylinder beneath them, and began their gradual descent. The maneuver locked them in with the habitat’s rotation, and the steadily increasing gravity brought their floating passengers down to the cockpit’s floor.

Nathan took control of the Belle’s telescope and zoomed in on a city that sprawled out around the base of the deifactory. Most structures were built from wood with a few—such as the city wall and what might have been a palace—constructed using stone. He didn’t spot any native structures over five stories tall, though the lack of doors, windows, or other means to shut out the elements caught his eye.

“Much in the way of inclement weather here?” Nathan asked.

“Not really,” Vessani replied. “Nothing more severe than a good downpour with the occasional thunderstorm. It can get windy, though. Temperature is pleasantly warm all year round. I’d never seen snow before the Jovians left me on Saturn.”

Nathan nodded, guiding the telescoping view across the city. Narrow streets twined their way through dense clusters of buildings laid out without any pattern or hint of central planning, growing organically outward to encircle three quarters of the deifactory’s base and to butt up against the sea. Some of the taller buildings resembled pagodas. People crowded through those streets, either on foot or seated in carts pulled by sleek-furred beasts of burden. Dozens of wooden ships—some large enough to feature multiple levels—anchored along the port, their many sails retracted.

He reduced the zoom and followed the outskirts of the city, which had spilled beyond the stout stone walls into wide patches of lush farmland. He shifted the view outward until he came across a wide field of smooth stone blocks with huge stone letters set into ground before it. The letters spelled out welcome in the crafted tongue, and the field had been painted with precise, concentric circles of blue.

“Aiko, you see this?” Nathan tapped the image on the vlass.

“I do.”

“Looks like a landing pad to me.”

“Sure does. Want me to set us down there?”

“Hold on.” Nathan turned to find Vessani wearing a face composed of equal parts confusion and worry. “You know anything about this?”

“Umm.” She began to chew her bottom lip.

“Because, if I recall correctly, you were kidnapped during a pirate raid on your people. Vicious marauders tend not to leave very good impressions with the locals. Certainly not good enough to warrant a huge, stone welcome mat.”

“Umm.”

“It’s been five years,” Joshua said. “Plenty could have happened here since then. Perhaps other, more civilized travelers have visited her people. Someone coded the airlock, after all.”

“Umm.” Vessani’s ears drooped and her tail fell limp.

“Vess?” Nathan raised an eyebrow. “Anything you want to share with us?”

“Well . . . maybe?” She gave them a quick, apologetic shrug of her shoulders.

“If you’ve got something to say, now would be the time.” He flashed an insincere smile. “You know. Before we try to talk with the locals.”

“Vess?” Joshua asked, his expression growing more concerned. “Is something wrong?”

“Kind of.” She turned to him, her face contorted with what was perhaps a measure of shame. “I may have forgotten something important.”

“Which is?”

“That I wasn’t actually”—she swallowed and winced—“kidnapped.”

“What?” Nathan and Joshua exclaimed in unison.

“I’m sorry!” she pleaded, more to Joshua. “I forgot!”

“Oh, this ought to be good!” Aiko crowed.

“How, exactly,” Nathan began, enunciating each word with care, “do you forget something like that?”

“I don’t know! It just happened!”

“Vess.” Joshua looked her in the eyes. “You told me you were taken from your home by force.”

“I know.” She bit into her lip again.

“But that’s not what happened?”

“Not really.” She gave him another shrug. “Sorry?”

“Then what did happen?” Joshua asked, his tone more curious than anything else.

“I . . . okay, look.” Vessani stepped back and held up her hands. “I never meant to lie to you about this. Or anything.”

“So, you weren’t kidnapped?” Nathan asked.

“Technically, no.”

“Then how’d you get off the habitat?”

“A ship visited five years ago, and I joined their crew.”

“Then we’re talking freelancers and not pirates?”

“No, they were definitely pirates, but I only learned that after joining. The line between the two can be murky at times.”

“Fair enough,” Nathan admitted.

“They’d lost some people on their last job and were looking to flesh out their ranks without heading back to the Union.” Her eyes brightened. “So, you see, I was tricked into leaving. That’s kind of like kidnapping, right?”

“Then let me see if I’ve got this straight: you, as a seventeen-year-old low-tech nekoan, somehow managed to join a pirate crew?”

“Yes, that’s right. I impressed them with my marksmanship.”

“Which you then forgot about.”

“I didn’t mean to!”

“Hey,” Aiko said. “Would all of you hurry up and figure this out? Am I landing this tub or not?”

“It should be fine,” Vessani said.

“But why hide this at all?” Nathan asked.

“Because of what happened after I joined up.”

“The Jovian privateers?”

“I was terrified when they attacked! A group of metal people cutting a bloody swath through the ship! I’d never seen anything like it!”

“Yeah,” Aiko chimed in. “Everlife commandos can have that effect on people.”

“What?” Nathan asked. “Selective forgetfulness?”

“Those who fought back were killed,” Vessani explained. “Those who didn’t were taken prisoner, me included. I had no idea what they were going to do to us! So I lied to them. Told them I’d been kidnapped. The Jovians realized I didn’t fit in with the rest of the pirates, so they bought the story. Even let me work for them for a time before they eventually dropped me off on Saturn.”

“And you just remembered all this?” Nathan asked with a creased brow.

“I don’t know. I’ve been telling the same tale for so long, it sort of became the real thing in my own head. I didn’t mean to deceive any of you. And they did lie about not being pirates. I found that out real quick!”

“You’re not very good at picking crews, are you?” Nathan said.

“I know! I’m sorry!”


Everyone but Aiko-One had assembled in the D Deck cargo hold, and Nathan studied the situation outside through a porthole. A trio of mounted nekoans had arrived shortly after they landed. They rode up to the edge of the landing pad atop huge beasts Vessani called “dire pumas.” All three creatures possessed sleek black coats of short, shiny fur.

“Cat people riding big cats,” Nathan mumbled. “Who would have thought?”

“I heard that,” Vessani said, her ears upright.

“Just making an observation.”

The riders included a woman flanked by two men. The woman wore a layered robe with a complex floral design over a subdued green backdrop. Her straight, golden hair draped both shoulders, and she’d decorated her ears with a dozen small rings and studs, each bejeweled with pearls or coral. She stood high in the saddle, back straight, green eyes focused and alert. Her tail lay curled about her waist as she waited.

Her companions wore armor composed of black-and-green lacquered plates over dark gray padding. Both wore black lacquered helms that covered most of their heads and featured conical spaces for their ears. The ornate sheaths of curved swords hung from their hips. One carried what appeared to be a deifactured hunting rifle, the artifact richly painted and decorated with etchings and metalwork flourishes. He’d slung a bandolier of ammo across his chest. The man without a rifle carried a flag featuring the golden silhouette of a deifactory across a black-and-green field split diagonally. The banner’s long tails whipped in the wind.

Nathan wondered if the presence of the rifle was a way for the locals to let visitors know “We’re not pushovers, so you’d better behave yourselves.” Who knew how many deifactured weapons they had access to? A Solar Almanac survey would almost certainly categorize them as low-tech, but such a finding could be misleading.

Almanac standards were simple enough: “high-tech” for spaceborne civilizations like the Concord or Union, “mid-tech” for societies with a meaningful airborne presence, and “low-tech” for everyone else. Those broad categories may have served the Almanac’s needs, but they inevitably told incomplete stories. A group of low-tech “primitives” with a cache of deifactured arms was not a force to be underestimated.

“I assume it’s the woman we want to talk to?” Nathan asked, stepping away from the porthole. Gravity was a touch lighter than standard.

“Yes,” Vessani said. “From the looks of it, she’s one of the King’s Arms. They’re a group of royal advisors. She’s not one I recognize, though. Maybe she’s new?”

“Sounds like we’re already off to a good start, then.” Nathan gestured to the ramp controls. “Shall we?”

“I don’t see why not.”

“All right. Then let’s see how this goes.” Nathan lowered the ramp and followed Vessani across the stones to the entourage. Aiko-Six hung back with the others, a rifle casually slung in her arms, just in case.

The woman dismounted from her dire puma, which gave her an affectionate nuzzle. She scratched it behind the ears, then proceeded across the landing pad. Her eyes fell on Vessani, and the slightest hint of a smile graced her lips. The soldier carrying the flag dismounted as well and approached by her side while the rifle-carrying solider stayed back on his dire puma.

A brief gust of hot wind whipped at Nathan’s jacket, causing it to flap against his back. The air carried the hints of flowers mixed with the subtle smell of earth baking under Sol’s reflected light. The two groups met halfway between the ship.

“Welcome, travelers.” The nekoan woman placed a fist over her heart and dipped her head. Her escort planted the flag and stood rigidly by her side. “I’m Nelaara Ret’Su, a representative of the king of T’Ohai, whose territory you now find yourself in. May I ask who you are and what brings you to our fair nation?”

“Of course.” Vessani gestured to herself, then to Nathan. “I’m Vess, and this is Captain Nathaniel Kade of the freelance transport Neptune Belle.”

“Hello.” Nathan nodded to the nekoan woman.

“Vess . . .” Ret’Su pursed her lips, as if on the edge of remembering something important. She then spoke in a guttural language that sounded like the prelude to a catfight.

Vessani smiled and responded in the same language.

“You’ve been to T’Ohai before?” Ret’Su observed smoothly.

“You could say that. I was born here.”

“Indeed?” The advisor’s ears perked up, and she smiled a little. “What brings you back home?”

“Your deifactory and the Black Egg. We’d like your permission to study it.”

“The Black Egg?” Her tail twitched. “For what purpose?”

“We believe it can point us to a trove of lost technology.”

Nathan shot Vessani a quick, sideways glance. There was negotiating openly, and then there was playing all your cards face up, but he kept quiet, content for now to let her handle the opening dialogue.

“Where?” Ret’Su asked. “Within the cylinder?”

“No,” Vessani replied. “Outside. Far away.”

“I see.” The advisor knitted her fingers together, and her hands disappeared into the long sleeves of her robe. “Then we wouldn’t be able to enjoy the fruits of your research. To share this ‘trove’ you speak of.”

“Not unless you’ve acquired a spaceship since I was last here.”

Ret’Su breathed in a brief, dismissive sniff. “We’ll require some form of compensation before we can grant you access to the deifactory.”

“We’ve got plenty to offer.”

“Without a doubt.” Her gaze darted to Nathan’s pistol, then to their ship. “Perhaps there’s a problem you can help us with in exchange for the access you seek.”

“Depends on the nature of the problem,” Nathan cut in before Vessani could answer.

“Naturally.” Ret’Su made eye contact with her escort and nodded. The flagbearer pulled a commect off his belt and began to speak into it using that growling language of theirs. Ret’Su turned back to them.

“What kind of work are we talking about here?” Nathan asked.

“I’m afraid I shouldn’t overstep my bounds in this matter. Any further discussions should involve our king. And on that note, it’s with great pleasure that I invite you and your crew back to T’Ohai Palace.”


“So far so good,” Vessani said from the rover’s passenger seat, speaking up to overcome the wind noise.

“Maybe. I don’t know.” Nathan shook his head as he drove the rover down the widening street. Aiko-Six, Rufus, and Joshua had joined them while Aiko-One sealed up the ship and remained behind. He thought he’d have to drive slowly while following Ret’Su and her escorts, but those dire pumas could move, and he maintained a swift pace behind them.

“Don’t you think this is a great start?” Vessani asked.

“It’s not that,” Nathan said. “It’s just me being cagey. The locals clearly want something, and I don’t have a clue what they’re going to ask for. Do you?”

“No, sorry. Must be a new problem.”

Their route to the palace took them through the docks. Sailing ships of various sizes sat in rows to one side while warehouses and other buildings took up the other. Nekoans on and around the ships stopped mid-task and watched the small procession with attentive eyes and erect ears. They didn’t appear worried or startled or fearful or any of the other negative reactions one might expect when high-tech and low-tech societies collided. More curious than anything else, which Nathan considered a good sign.

These people have seen high-tech visitors before, he thought. As if the “welcome mat” didn’t make that obvious enough.

Many of the ship and dockyard crews hauled slices of giant fish out of the water and up wooden ramps, or used cranes and pulleys to swing chunks off the decks of their ships. He caught sight of a severed head with jaws nearly as wide as the bow of the largest ship. Many of the vessels featured carved fishbones as part of their figureheads.

Nathan wrinkled his nose reflexively at the sight of all that raw fish, but when he breathed in the air, he found it to be surprisingly . . . non-fishy. Almost pleasantly fresh by comparison, accompanied by the iron tang of blood in the air.

“Mmm, gigatuna,” Vessani murmured and licked her lips. “It’s been a while.”

“Is this making you a little homesick?” Nathan asked.

“Not really. Nostalgic, maybe. But not homesick.” She gave him a half smile. “This might be where I’m from, but it’s not home anymore.”

Nathan nodded, believing he understood what she meant. Her experiences beyond the habitat had changed her forever. There was no looking back—no going back—to whatever life she’d once enjoyed in this city. She wasn’t the same person she’d been five years ago. She’d been given a taste of the richness, splendor, and perils of the wider solar system. Who would want to go back to a simple, safe, boring, low-tech life after all that?

Not me, Nathan thought. And not Vess, by the looks of it.

The three dire pumas turned down a wide, straight street that cut through the heart of the city and ended in a pair of five-story pagodas with an expansive two-story complex sprawled out between them.

“The palace?” Nathan asked.

“Yep,” Vessani replied. “You guessed it.”

Nathan followed the three dire pumas up to a whitewashed stone wall that encircled the palace. They passed through an open gate flanked by a pair of guards clad in black-and-green lacquered armor and equipped with curved swords. The gate led into a well-tended field of flowers, fruiting trees, and small reflection pools in front of the palace proper. Bees and colorful butterflies buzzed and fluttered around the gardens, and twin rows of green and black streamers flapped on the ends of high poles on either side of the main path.

The dire pumas stopped in front of a wide staircase between a pair of thick, wooden columns. Ret’Su dismounted and handed the puma’s reins to a waiting attendant. Nathan parked next to her, switched off the rover, and pocketed the key.

“Want me to stick with the rover?” Aiko-Six asked quietly. “Or should I come with you?”

“Stay with the rover for now,” Nathan whispered back. “Let’s get a feel for their king before we get too comfortable.”

“You’ve got it.” She plopped her metal butt onto the hood of the rover and shouldered her rifle. “Just scream if you want me to . . . ‘you know.’”

“Come charging to the rescue, guns blazing?”

“I was thinking more along the lines of calling One and having her loom menacingly overhead until they give you back. But yeah. Guns blazing works, too.”

“Let’s hope it doesn’t come to either.” He gave Aiko a quick pat on the shoulder, then walked over to Ret’Su.

“The king is expecting you.” Ret’Su made a broad welcoming gesture toward the stairs. “This way, please.”

Nathan, Vessani, Rufus, and Joshua followed her through the columns and up the stairs to the palace. Ornate glass lamps burned brightly on either side of the long corridor of varnished wood.

Fish oil? Nathan wondered, but soon he found his attention pulled elsewhere. Clusters of robed nekoans in adjoining rooms or corridors watched them pass, and the echoes of guttural conversation grew more pronounced the farther in they proceeded. He wasn’t sure what to make of the growing commotion until he noticed a graying nekoan woman point to Vessani and gasp.

“Vess?” he asked.

“Hmm?”

“Is it just me, or are the locals talking about you?”

“They are?” she replied coyly. “I hadn’t noticed.”

“You didn’t forget something important again, did you?”

“No,” she stressed. “I didn’t forget. This is totally different.”

“Okay, then. Just so we’re clear on that.”

“I chose not to tell you this.”

“I—” Nathan turned to her sharply. “Excuse me?”

“Don’t look so worried. You wouldn’t have believed me, anyway.”

“Vess, if there’s something you haven’t told—”

“Don’t worry!” She gave him a confident wink. “I told you I can handle the locals and I will. I’ve got this. Have a little faith.”

“Says the woman who forgot her own past.”

She rolled her eyes. “Now you’re just being mean.”

“If I am, it’s because you gave me reason to.”

Ret’Su led them into a circular audience chamber where a large, grizzled nekoan sat on the throne in the center of a two-step dais. Loose robes of green—decorated with golden pyramids—covered the modest swell of his belly as he leaned to one side, his chin propped up on an elbow. Strands of gray hair chased through his braided, black beard, which reached halfway down his stomach. He watched them enter with sharp, golden eyes that fell upon Vessani and immediately . . . softened?

Over a dozen attendants flanked the king on either side, all resplendent in colorful robes, and a pair of armored guards stood behind him with swords and shields. A graying dire puma lounged on a nearby cushioned pad and looked up at the newcomers, its eyes glinting in the light.

A young woman scurried through a side curtain, glanced to the approaching foreigners, then hurried to the king’s side and whispered urgently to him. His ears rose at her words, and his eyes widened.

“Your Majesty, King D’Miir S’Kaari ne T’Ohai.” Ret’Su bowed to the king, then swept an open hand toward Nathan and the others. “May I present Captain Nathaniel Kade and—”

“Vessani S’Kaari ne T’Ohai,” Vessani interrupted, her firm voice filling the chamber.

Someone in the audience chamber gasped, followed by the sound of shattering pottery. Vessani ignored the commotion and stepped forward, her eyes locked with the king’s.

“Vess?” The king took hold of a cane in one hand and rose from his throne with a labored groan. “My Vess?” He walked forward, the cane clacking against wood.

A pair of attendants hovered on either side, ready to catch him should he stumble. He shooed them away and grunted as he climbed off the dais and approached Vessani.

“My beautiful Vess?” he breathed, reaching up to caress her cheek with a large palm.

“Hey, Dad.” She closed her eyes and pressed his hand against her cheek. “It’s been a while.”



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