“You might be right about that. Listen, I heard you had a little trouble en route to Mars.”
I almost asked how he knew about that, but I remembered in time that we’d filed an incident report when we docked at Mars.
“It was nothing we couldn’t handle, but—it was strange.” I leaned back in my chair and tapped my fingers against my lower lip. “It wasn’t like a pirate attack—he had next to nothing for weapons. A few flash-pack torps, that was it. As soon as we fired our own warning shot across his path, he took off with some kind of drive that wasn’t standard issue on the tub he was driving, and sent—”
I stopped—too late.
“Sent what?” He pursed his lips and narrowed his eyes at me. “Seems like you left something out of that report you filed on Mars.”
I blew out a sigh. “
Okej
, you got me. I didn’t think they needed to know, and it would have raised more questions that I didn’t want to answer. He sent off an encrypted message to PrimeCorp main.”
He raised his eyebrows. “And you know this . . . how?”
“Mm-hmm. See, that’s one of those questions. The ones I don’t want to answer.” I grinned at him.
“You wouldn’t happen to know what the message said, would you?”
I studied Lanar’s face on the screen for a minute, trying to read his eyes. I could lie and tell him I didn’t know, but he might already know the answer to the question, if Yuskeya had reported the incident to him herself. Which it was quite likely she had. The thought triggered a brief flash of annoyance, but I suppressed it quickly. I knew she had to divide her loyalties, and really, it wasn’t a bad thing to have Lanar in the loop regarding possible threats to the
Tane Ikai
. I only wished I was always in the loop about what he knew and didn’t know.
“A couple of words—’location’ and ‘Paixon’,” I said finally. “So he was definitely targeting us specifically. It was almost like he was testing us.”
“To see what weapons you had on board, yes. He took off after he got a taste of them. Hmmm.” He closed his eyes for a moment, then shook his head. “Watch your back, Luta. Not only because of Cerevare and the new wormhole and what’s beyond it. PrimeCorp obviously isn’t through with you—with us.”
“Obviously. Lanar . . . do you think Mother’s safe?”
He laughed. “I don’t think Mother’s been safe for decades, but she’s managed to take care of herself all right.”
“I know. This thing with that space pirate, or whoever he was, though, it’s got me worried about her.”
Lanar squinted at me a little. “I don’t think they were actually much of a threat.”
“Neither do I, it’s just—like you said, PrimeCorp doesn’t seem to be through with us. I thought once they got their hands slapped on Vele, they’d back off for a while, at least. But if they’re still dogging me, then they’re not likely to leave her alone, either. And now they know she has connections on Kiando.”
“Gusain Buig will keep her safe. And she hasn’t moved to release her data on the bioscavs yet. I think she’s waiting until after she meets with Schulyer Corp.”
“Buig and Duntmindi are no match for PrimeCorp. And I know Alin Sedmamin didn’t take much of a hit personally, but PrimeCorp doesn’t like to lose, even a little bit.”
“I think they’ll tread more carefully now, at least for a while,” he argued. “At the very least, we put them on notice that we’re watching what they do very carefully.”
I shook a finger at him. “You’re the one who told me the Protectorate thinks PrimeCorp is up to something big,” I reminded him. “I hope Mother—”
“What? She’s spent the last seventy years running from them. She knows what they’re like.”
I sighed. “I know. But would you send her a message for me? Tell her what you told me. To watch her back. I thought they’d leave us alone for a while, but that pirate’s got me thinking otherwise. I don’t think they’re finished yet.”
“I’ll tell her.” He quirked a smile. “And Luta, give the Protectorate some credit, would you? We won’t let PrimeCorp take over Nearspace simply because they want to.”
“I know that, Lanar,” I said, “but do they?”
AS I EXPECTED
, my crew gave me no cause for concern in the way they got along with our passenger. Apparently Viss had known numerous Lobors during his checkered past and seemed able to effortlessly keep Cerevare giggling at his outrageous stories. Everyone was friendly and considerate, and Cerevare herself kept mostly to her quarters, hunched, no doubt, over those datascreens she’d mentioned to me in the scooter. She wasn’t antisocial, but she plainly had work to do and didn’t want to interfere with ours.
Although she’d travelled at least one wormhole before—the one between Nanear and Anar—she came up to the bridge for our first skip together. It took us from the Lambda Saggitae system to Sol, and Cerevare made complimentary remarks about the skip, what she saw of the system, and our collective skills. She turned out to be quite adept at
quozit
, liked to talk about Earthside fashion with Maja, and generally got along with everyone.
I happened upon her deep in conversation with Hirin and Viss one evening in the galley. I’d been reading, not for escape but for enjoyment, and came down to the galley for a cold drink before retiring.
As I entered the galley, I heard Hirin say, “But how much is known, and how much is speculation?”
Cerevare shrugged. A steaming mug of something sat on the table near her right hand, and she toyed with crumbs on a small plate as she spoke. I suspected they’d been sharing out the last of a batch of crunchy
solanto
cookies she’d surprised us by baking the day before. They were brown-sugar-sweet, like Mexican
coyotas,
but filled with roga-nut spice from Renata and drizzled with a sweet glaze.
“The question of how much is known has a simple answer: not very much. Incredible amounts of data have survived since the time of the Chron War, but none of it sheds any light on what prompted the Chron to enter Nearspace and attack its inhabitants, or what they hoped to gain by so doing.”
“Or why they broke off the war so suddenly and completely,” added Viss. His own plate held even more crumbs than Cerevare’s. He’d rolled up the sleeves of his one-piece red shipsuit and opened the front, revealing a clean white t-shirt underneath. He was obviously quite at ease with Cerevare now.
“
Ekzakte
. It has never even been determined how they moved around in Nearspace much of the time. Sometimes they utilized the wormholes we ourselves use, but at other times their appearance in a particular part of a system would seem to be inexplicable. And they’d disappear as quickly and mysteriously.”
I crossed to the table with my double caff and sat down, peeking into the cookie container. Empty, as I’d suspected. “I thought it was fairly widely accepted that they had some limited ability to time-travel.”
Cerevare grimaced. Her ear twitched, and her golden hoops tinkled. “
Timeslipping
, people called it. But in my considered opinion, that ability is still in the realm of myth or legend. The Chron did seem to appear and disappear in inexplicable ways—the logs and other historical data show this. However, the mechanism for it was never understood. Even though a few—a very few—Chron ships, and debris from Chron ships, were recovered for study, no mechanism could ever be identified to substantiate this theory.”
“So, no way to get the technology for ourselves, if it did exist,” Viss said. “I’d love to get my hands on some of that tech, even if I couldn’t reverse-engineer it.”
“And was it true that they took no prisoners, never interrogated any humans or Lobors or Vilisians?” Hirin wanted to know.
Cerevare inclined her head. “As far as the records show, that is correct. They appeared in Nearspace, began attacking planets, colonies, ships in transit, space stations, and never attempted any communication. They were ruthless and would not allow themselves to be captured alive. It was usual for them to take steps to ensure that even their corpses would not be retrieved by their enemies.” Cerevare’s black nose wrinkled delicately in distaste. The Lobors had intricate funeral rituals and a strong belief in their importance. I could see why they’d be horrified at the Chron’s apparent disregard for such things.
“But we did. Retrieve some bodies for study, I mean,” Viss said.
“Oh yes, indeed we did. Three, to be exact. They were examined in detail.” Cerevare steepled her fingers in front of her. The Lobors had five-fingered hands with opposable thumbs, the skin on the backs covered with fine fur and the palms and fingertips studded with rough pads. They used them the same way humans did, to aid in expression.
“The Chron—and of course that is only our name for them; we have little knowledge about their own language or what name they might have given themselves—they are another species, like humans, Vilisians, and Lobors, with bipedal symmetry and a similar arrangement of body parts. Head, torso, two arms, two legs. A tough, plated or scaled skin—all three had a pale colouration—with no body hair, and protruding bone flares at the back of the head that showed individuation. In the bodies we studied, two distinct genders were noted, and we inferred sexual reproduction. Their DNA is three-stranded and their chromosomal chemistry perhaps as different as that of any of the other three races we know. In other words, they were no more dissimilar than humans and Lobors.” She flashed a brief smile at us.
“There was some evidence that the use of bioengineered genes and genetic enhancements might be widespread throughout the population, although since our research specimens were limited it could have been a phenomenon only among members of the military. The most we know of any written language are the basic symbols marking the controls in their ships. It seems unlikely that any species could attain spacefaring capabilities without a well-developed written language, so this seems to be further evidence of their almost pathological need for secrecy.”
“Were their ships the only examples of their technology we ever saw?” I asked.
Cerevare nodded. “They carried no personal artifacts, or nothing we could identify as such. The ships were always small, one- or two-person craft, not intended to offer amenities on long journeys. For this reason we always felt certain that the larger Chron base ships—or a way back to them—couldn’t be far away. But we were never able to actually track them to one.”
Hirin pushed his chair away from the table and rose, crossing to the counter to pull a refill of steaming chai from the dispenser. “So, what do you think you’ll be able to do at this moon artifact?”
“That, I do not know, yet,” the Lobor answered. “I am carrying a large amount of data with me, although I doubt it is more than the Protectorate would have.” She leaned back in her chair, stifling a yawn with a softly-furred hand; an incongruous pairing with such a human gesture. “To be perfectly honest, I don’t know what the Protectorate expects from me. I suspect they are calling in anyone they can find who might be considered an ‘expert’ in any area of Chron knowledge.”
“Grasping at straws?” asked Viss with a grin.
Cerevare smiled. “Something like that. But however much or little help I am ultimately able to offer, I am excited to see a ‘new’ Chron item after all this time.”
“I wonder why they think it’s Chron?” I mused. “With so little hard physical data for reference.”
“It would not take much for them to make that assumption,” Cerevare said. “If similar alloys were used in its construction, or even a repetition of the few symbols we recognize as Chron from their ships, it would be enough. They are distinctive.” She stood and stretched. “And on that note, I shall make my way to bed. Thank you all, for a most interesting discussion.”
With a final smile for the three of us, she left the galley, the full yellow trousers she wore tonight swaying gently in time with her slightly bouncing gait.
Hirin contemplated the remains of his chai. “I wonder what this discovery will mean for Nearspace?”
“It’ll change things,” Viss said. “As long as it doesn’t attract any unwanted interest.”
“What do you mean?”
He shrugged. “I keep thinking about all the ways something like that could be configured to send out a signal if it were discovered, if someone started messing with it. Sure, the Chron haven’t been around Nearspace in a hundred and fifty years—that doesn’t mean they’ve disappeared from the entire universe.”
“The Protectorate will be careful,” I said, but it sounded hollow, even to me. I wished I’d asked Lanar more about it when I’d had him on the comm.
“By all accounts the Chron were some mean
bastardos
,” Viss said. “I hope being careful will be enough.”
We all went off to our quarters then, but the jarring note of the end of the conversation replayed in my mind. Despite the comforting presence of Hirin’s even breathing at my side in our quarters, hours passed before sleep deigned to visit me.
THE EIGHT YEARS
since my father died on Quma have been busy for me. I spent two trying to track down his old PrimeCorp colleague, Emmage Mahane, whose name I’d finally found in my father’s datapad. His notes on her were extensive, enough to make me think he’d been a bit unhealthily obsessed with her all these years, although he’d never mentioned her in my hearing. PrimeCorp wanted her, and wanted her badly, since she’d absconded with every speck of data on the nanobioscavenger project when she objected to the ethics of PrimeCorp’s marketing plans.