“Well, then, let’s do it. Make it so.”

  Garfield gave me an eye roll, then hit the big red button. The drone shot toward the wormhole mouth, on a vector directly toward galactic center. It hit the middle of the target without any indication of anything unusual. From the observation drone’s point of view, it simply continued to coast directly away. From our angle off to one side, though, it disappeared.

  “SCUT signal picked up at the other end,” Garfield said. “It got through successfully and is still operational. Transit time is … a big fat zero.” He paused. “Uh-oh.”

  “Jeebus, I wish we could retire that exclamation,” I said. “I hate uh-oh.”

  “Yeah.” Garfield poked at a few icons. “The drone’s hull has stress fractures. New ones, in case you’re wondering. I don’t think the trip is as routine as we’d like.”

  “Fine. Let’s debug.”

  We were back in the moot pub, with the Ancient Ones. No Howard and Bridget this time, and no Hugh. I would send him a summary later.

  “I have—” I started to say.

  “Good news and bad news,” Bob finished for me. “Quelle surprise.”

  I leaned back and glared at him. “Y’know, when even we Bobs are getting tired of our shtick, it may be time to start worrying.”

  Bob smiled back at me. “Not wrong.”

  “So anyway … ” Will said.

  “Oh, uh, yeah.” I paused to regroup. “Good news, we’ve sent several drones of various sizes through the wormhole and received working drones at the other end.”

  “That sounds like the good news, all right,” Bob said.

  “Uh-huh. Bad news, they were a little dinged up. The trip through seems to momentarily squeeze the drone. Hard.”

  “Can’t you just make the mouth bigger?” Will asked.

  “It’s not squeezing through a small aperture, Will. Although that’s what immediately pops to mind. But there’s no drag. The squeeze is inward from all sides and doesn’t result in any net deceleration. It’s just an effect of the transit.”

  “Is it fatal? Or potentially damaging? I mean—” Will paused. “You already said there was damage, but is it potentially destructively damaging?”

  I sighed. “Dunno, Will. We’re going to keep increasing the size of both the wormholes and our test subjects. I’ll let you know. But right now, it looks like we’re just about ready to set up wormhole transit systems, once the shipments arrive at their destinations.”

  “Good, because we’re less than a year away from when the first wormhole endpoint arrives at its destination system. We can delay for a while, but within three years, all the wormhole deliveries will be in place, WormNet will be ready to activate, and then it’s fish or cut bait.”

  “That’s not all,” Bob interjected, “although this isn’t really a critical issue. Howard took it upon himself to arrange the same wormhole deliveries at most of the populated UFS planets. Once we can deliver a working system, the Enniscorthy Astronomical Transit Matter Exchange is ready to open for business.”

  I pinched the bridge of my nose and sighed. “You have got to be kidding. ‘EAT ME’?” I looked at Bob. “The sense of humor is a given, but did you know you had this mercenary streak in you?”

  “Well, I did create InterGator software.”

  “And sold it for a crapton of dough,” Garfield added with a laugh.

  “Did someone mention to Howard that I wanted to keep it secret for a bit?” Will asked.

  “Yes, and he’s fine with it,” Bob replied. “For a while, anyway. He has a whole marketing thing ready, though.”

  “And all members of the Bobiverse are automatically shareholders in anything Howard cooks up, so we’ll all ride this wave,” Garfield said with a grin.

  “And what do we need money for?” Will complained.

  “To pay lawyers,” Bob replied. “Personally, I think when we get to the heat death of the universe, there’ll be a bunch of lawyers waiting there for us.”

  I nodded. “Not wrong.”

  Chapter Fifty-Nine:

  Showdown

  Howard

  September 2344

  Jabberwocky

  Icame in fast just over the trees and landed hard on the beach in front of my assassins. A real dragon probably would have sprained or broken both ankles. My dranny interface merely sent me a mild rebuke about abusing the warranty, which I ignored.

  I’d been trying for the “superhero landing,” and I like to think I pulled it off, as the members of my former military escort all jumped and then looked very alarmed.

  “So who did the actual dirty?” I asked casually, scanning their faces. No poker players here—three of them were unable to suppress quick eye movements, all directed at the fourth. Gerrard, my translation interface had dubbed him.

  I smiled thinly in his direction. “Well, Gerrard, I know you were just following orders, so I’m not going to rip your head off and use it for soccer practice.” I made a note to myself to look up how the interface translated soccer. “But there will be a reckoning, once all the excitement is over.” Then I changed the subject. “Meanwhile, how are we doing on preparations?”

  The soldiers glanced at each other in confusion. I was not behaving as expected. Well, to be honest, I wasn’t as dead as expected, either.

  Finally, Gerrard decided to just go with the flow. “Uh, we’ve got the fires started, stocked up some spare kindling, and we’ve mapped three lakes in the area that have good food stocks. Not trout exactly, but pretty good. Bigger, on average.”

  “That’s because they haven’t been getting eaten by dragons for the last forever,” I replied. “By my estimates, the first wave of immigrants should be coming in within a couple of hours. Will we have places for them?”

  “We’re going to drag in some dead trees and split them up for firewood. They’ll burn faster than new wood, but we’ll need the heat. It’ll be a few days around the campfire at night until the flotilla gets here, and then we can all go back to civilization. Uh … ” Gerrard squinted at me. “How did you survive, anyway?”

  “I didn’t.” I gave him an evil—and I hoped cryptic—smile and pointed at the scar on my chest. “It was a good strike. Killed me instantly. But I don’t stay dead.” I waved a hand. “Never mind. I’ll take it up with Alexander. If he hasn’t already gotten himself killed from making a pass at my wife.” I shrugged, dismissing the subject. “Meanwhile, let’s get that firewood stocked up.”

  The first wave of civilians came in right on schedule, shepherded by a couple of soldiers from the scout group. These were the upper half of the population bell curve fitness-wise, but they were still civilians. Most dragons didn’t engage in any kind of marathon flying, and the two legs of this journey would have taken everything out of them. In fact, we were expecting at least a couple of deaths from dragons who simply couldn’t do the distance.

  This group came in low, and most of the landings reminded me of blue-footed boobies from the old National Geographic episodes about the Galápagos. A lot of them simply collapsed when their feet hit the ground and lay there, not even trying to get out of the way. There were a couple of pileups, but nothing serious. We helped the more exhausted individuals over to the fire, gave them some tuev and some fresh trout to nibble on, and left them to get their breath back.

  My erstwhile escort hadn’t tried anything while we were prepping, likely not having any orders to cover this situation. Plus, let’s face it, having your victim come back from the dead had to be off-putting. And now that we had several dozen potential witnesses, the time for correcting the situation was over.

  “How are things at your end?” Bridget messaged me.

  “Going well. First wave made it without casualties. Next group should be here in a couple of hours. How’s His Nibs?”

  I could hear her smile in the reply. “He’s paying a lot of attention to me, making pretty transparent remarks about life and death and choosing your fate. What is it with men?”

  “Hey, don’t blame me. I got a spear through the heart, remember?”

  Instead of the expected comeback, though, I got silence. “Bridget?”

  “Something’s going on, Howard. I’ve just been surrounded by Alexander and his goons. He’s got a funny look on his face, and I don’t mean hah-hah.”

  “Bridget, get out of there. Now.”

  “I don’t think I can. They’ve got—Howard! No! Oh my god!”

  I went into panic mode. Launching myself straight up, I called up the cargo drone that we kept on standby, then flew up a half kilometer to meet it. I climbed into the hold and ordered the drone to the area of the flotilla, minimum travel time. That would require a ballistic trajectory, most of the flight above atmosphere.

  “Bridget!” I messaged again. “What’s happening?”

  Her reply came with an overtone of anger that I rarely heard in her voice. I’ve just gotten the big speech. It seems you are a distraction from my time and a bad influence. Bottom line, he wants me as a permanent member of the records team. He’s informed me that you are now fish food. I’m being grounded temporarily to give me time to consider, but if I don’t see the light, he’ll make it permanent.

  Wait, that can’t be right, I replied. “They shouldn’t be able to pull your primaries.”

  “They didn’t try. They cut them. With machetes. I’ve been clipped. I think maybe Alexander didn’t want to cause me pain. Repair systems say twenty-four hours to generate new ones.”

  That was the last straw. I didn’t give a good goddamn how much I upset the dragon history books. Alexander was going to get his heart punched out.

  I directed the drone to come in under the altitude of the flotilla, then swoop upward. As the cargo door popped open, I dropped out and did a perfect arc, coming down over the royal floater.

  Practice makes perfect, and this time, my superhero landing sprayed dirt on everyone. Bridget was standing there surrounded by soldiers, facing off against Alexander in apparent midargument. Both turned to stare at me, along with all the soldiers. Only Bridget’s expression didn’t register shock, although I think I’d even startled her.

  “But, but you’re … ” Alexander sputtered.

  “Dead?” I finished for him. Someone must have returned to report my fate before I’d made my reappearance. So much the better. “I was. Gerrard did a good job. But I don’t stay down. Let’s see how you do.” I advanced on him, and several soldiers jumped forward to his defense.

  And the cargo drone landed on them.

  Not hard enough to crush them, but they’d certainly wake up with headaches. Battle-hardened or not, the rest of the soldiers scattered. Even Alexander backpedaled.

  As the drone hovered in midair, camouflage off and the cargo door open, I messaged Bridget. “Go for it.”

  I said to Alexander, in a voice intended to carry, “The migration is a success. You’ve done a great thing for dragons. But you’re still a bit of an asshole. I hope you’ll disband your empire now that it’s no longer needed.”

  Bridget, meanwhile, made a break for the shuttle. Clipped or not, she could still generate a little lift, and dranny muscles could manage a pretty good leap. In two bounds, she was in the cargo hold. With a leap and a flap, I joined her, and the door slammed shut.

  I ordered the drone to re-camouflage and launch straight up, then reached forward and gently took one of Bridget’s wings to examine the cut. She put her hand on mine and said, “It’s just a dranny, Howard. Let’s rack them and go home.”

  Chapter Sixty:

  Encounter

  Icarus

  February 2338

  Wormhole network

  After our failure at the DMZ system, we’d decided to visit another civilization at random while we tried to work out a strategy going forward.

  This last one had been especially interesting. The locals had essentially colonized their entire system, from the hot-as-hell Mercury-type planet near their sun to the freezing example of Fimbulwinter at the edge of their Kuiper belt. In addition, every single moon was covered in structures, and every asteroid bigger than about a half kilometer in diameter seemed to have been hollowed out and spun up for gravity.

  And all empty.

  I was trying very hard to avoid the feeling that I was in some kind of Stephen King horror story, where perhaps a carnivorous clown had eaten everyone. But it was hard.

  As we oriented ourselves to the local orbital plane, my external sensors started blaring. “Woo-hoo,” I yelled. “Action at last.”

  “Celebration is premature,” Dae retorted. “Let’s make sure we survive first.”

  A quick examination of the area via SUDDAR revealed a caravan of huge vessels on a trajectory that had them going between two wormholes. The wormhole they’d apparently exited was a hub connection, but a radial one that led inbound. The destination gate was also a hub, but we’d already determined that it led to the next hub spinwise.

  We moved toward the caravan, but not so quickly or directly as to appear threatening. More of a “heading for the same gate” kind of vibe. I sent a gate-query frequency radio beam toward them, more in an act of desperation than anything. And I was rewarded with exactly what I expected: total ignore.

  But we were now close enough for a SUDDAR scan. I sent out a full-power pulse and got back, well, very little. Most of the ship was quite visible in SUDDAR, and resembled any random space vessel—engines, maintenance, computer systems, et cetera. No passengers, though. There were spaces that appeared to be accommodations for living beings, but they were empty. So automated transports.

  The surprise, though, was the area of the ship that had to be the hold. It was shielded. From SUDDAR. All I got back was a blank rectangular volume.

  “I didn’t know that was even possible,” Dae said.

  “Not a technology that we have,” I replied. “Cloaking, yes. Shielding? That’s a new one. I wonder what they’re hiding?”

  “Assuming they’re hiding something. The shielding might be to protect the environment rather than the contents.”

  I frowned at him. “What needs that level of shielding?”

  “I don’t know. Ask them,” Dae retorted, waving at the video window.

  Shrugging, I sent a plain-language query in Roanokian. And got the same response.

  “That’s not really working either,” I said. “How about we follow?”

  “Suits me.”

  We hurried to get in line behind the caravan. In a few hours, they reached the destination gate and began parading through. Finally, it was our turn, and we followed the last transport vessel.

  “Where—?” I exclaimed, perplexed. The caravan had disappeared, except for the vessel we’d been following.

  “They’ve split up,” Dae said. Sure enough, the holotank tracking display showed each vessel heading for a different gate.

  “None are hub gates. All local.” I rubbed my chin in thought. “Local deliveries?”

  “Of what?”

  With a sigh, I changed my heading to follow the vessel in front of us as it made a slow, ponderous turn. “Let’s find out.”

  We hadn’t been through this particular gate ourselves, so it was a bit of a twofer. The transport ship, for that was almost certainly its purpose, steered a conservative course for what turned out to be the home planet for the local civilization. Or rather, a space station in a geosynchronous orbit.

  The in-system trip took about 30 hours, given that the transport didn’t seem to be in any kind of hurry. On arrival, it cozied up to the space station and docked. The station was monster big, easily dwarfing the transport, which was no baby itself. I also noticed a fleet of smaller ships maintaining position around the space station. They seemed to be all of a type, as well.

  “Guards?” Dae said.

  “Not very intimidating-looking. They have more of a cargo-drone vibe, I think.”

  “Ah. Maybe waiting for whatever the big ship is unloading.”

  The unloading took about six hours. At the end of it, the transport unlinked and began moving in a stately fashion for the gate. At the same time, the smaller cargo drones began queuing up at different docks. That pretty much confirmed that whatever the transport had unloaded, everyone wanted some.

  I decided to try again with the station. I beamed a greeting in Roanokian.

  And received a reply.

  “Roanokian vessel, this is an interdicted zone. Unsafe for improperly equipped vessels. Please move to a safe distance.”

  I replied, “What is the nature of the danger?”

  “Roanokian vessel, regulations require a one-thousand-kilometer exclusion zone from antimatter storage facilities for all unauthorized vessels. Please move to a safe distance to avoid impoundment.”

  Antimatter? Cripes. I backpedaled furiously, in a SURGE-drive kind of way, until we were at the appropriate distance.

  “Hey, Icky, if they just delivered antimatter, you know what that means?”

  “What?”

  “They have a source of antimatter.”

  “You are a master of the obvious, Dae. And why would they need antimatter? Surely they have Casimir power systems. Actually, we know they do. We’ve scanned their vessels.”

  “Casimir generators are dependable, long-lasting, and don’t require refueling,” Dae said in lecture mode. “But they don’t have a terrific power-to-mass ratio. The only reason we prefer them is because nuclear-fusion reactors were worse.”

  “Whereas antimatter … ” I replied, prompting him.

  “Is the densest power-delivery system in the universe. Yeah, you have to refuel every once in a while, but for situations where you need just monstrous levels of power, it’s the way to go.”

  “Hmm. Good points. But it would have to be relatively easy to get hold of; otherwise, it wouldn’t be worth it. And creating it in colliders and such is a nonstarter.”

  “True. So let’s find out. Assuming the transport ship is heading home for another load, we should follow.”