Woolsey nodded. “On that point, we agree. I sometimes have a hard time believing it myself. One battle after the next. But I’m a soldier. All I know is the fight ahead. And frankly, I think another war is inevitable. I’m glad to know we’re on the same team, Trevor.”

  That sounded like ‘thank you, but I have to work to do.’ Trevor knew he’d overstayed the moment. They shook again, yet right when Woolsey pivoted to leave ...

  “I ... I don’t want to keep you, sir. Just two things.”

  “Sure.”

  “You really think it will come to war?”

  “In a few years.”

  “Even if you’re able to expand the fleet and truly go after these bastards?”

  The Admiral sighed, but it didn’t sound like impatience.

  “We knew who the Swarm were. We built a remarkable navy to meet them. There won’t be front lines with Black Star. They’ll be unpredictable and cold blooded. Worse than the Swarm.”

  “I see. And what about the rumors of their leader? I saw how you reacted when Chief Al-Jani brought it up. I get the sense you think he might actually be an immortal.”

  Woolsey tossed him a dubious glare, as if Trevor overstepped.

  “I can’t discuss the particulars. I hope you understand.”

  “Absolutely. You’re a light-year above my pay stamp. I’m just happy you gave me a moment to embarrass myself. I also hope you’ll be leading the UNF for a long time. We need you, Admiral Woolsey.”

  “Thank you, Trevor. I don’t hear that kind of support as often as I’d wish. All the best.”

  Trevor saw genuine pain in the Admiral’s eyes as he walked away. The burden must have been unrelenting.

  He thought of Ana, whose young lifetime of pain tore at his heart every day, and magnified the weight tenfold. What must it have been like to oversee the protection of forty worlds and watch the enemy take root everywhere?

  If he can manage, what have I got to complain about?

  Trevor set his mind to making a difference in the only way he knew how: Solving Ulbrecht Hann’s murder.

  “Time to finish this.”

  22

  MAXIMILLIAN VANOVER PREACHED interstellar unity after the Swarm War. Yet the public face did not match the one Trevor and Connor saw in private. Every night they remained under his care, Maximillian told them great tales of Chancellor history.

  “Legacy, my boys, is defined by how we use these memories to take control of our future.”

  Connor’s attention waned, his mind searching for something new and shiny. Trevor, on the other hand, processed every message, but not out of blind faith. He sorted the ideas into mental boxes.

  Accept. Reject. Reconsider.

  “Gramp,” Trevor said, “what you’re telling us is nothing new. If we don’t learn from history, we’ll repeat the mistakes. According to you, the Chancellors did everything right for three thousand years. You talk of nothing else. Yet the empire collapsed overnight. That can’t happen unless our caste made huge mistakes. They didn’t learn.”

  Trevor, then eighteen and tired of dwelling on the past, watched with increasing impatience as Max opened a data spool containing testimonials about the fall of the Collectorate in 5357-58.

  “We were set upon by a tiny group of malcontents who made weapons like no one had seen. Singularity bombs. They mastered mobile wormholes, a technology we knew nothing of. They hit the Carriers without warning. The slaughter was unprecedented and unforeseeable.”

  Trevor stood his ground.

  “I read about Salvation. The hybrids and the bioengineered immortals were children. Our caste fell to a thousand kids in a fleet of seven ships. Gramp, an empire doesn’t allow that to happen if it’s paying attention. The Chancellory lost its way. It stopped doing ‘all the right things’ long before then.”

  “You were not there, boy.”

  Max’s tone showed no regret or shame, either of which Trevor thought appropriate. He despised his caste’s ancient legacy of oppression and opportunism. They enriched themselves at the expense of ninety percent of the human race.

  “Gramp, you’re saying we were wronged without doing wrong ourselves. We share none of the blame. Is that your position?”

  “Trevor, my boy, I’d hate to think you’ve grown into a self-loathing Chancellor.”

  “I won’t allow the past to define me. The Chancellors’ time ended. Connor and I were born too late. We have to be defined by something other than our caste, or we’ll be miserable.”

  Max crossed his legs and stared quizzically at his oldest grandson. He massaged his beard.

  “You’re wrong, my boy. The caste itself may no longer guarantee the life of your dreams, but your genetic profile does.”

  Trevor side-eyed Connor. The ten-year-old played with a tablet.

  “How, Gramp? Our genes are so flawed, we take VT 460.”

  “Those genes contain the intellectual traits that elevated our caste above the human race.”

  The old man popped up from his comfy chair. He snapped his fingers at Connor and told the boy to put down his tablet. Connor rolled his eyes but complied.

  “You have the innate ability to reassemble the intricate details of the present to extrapolate a future you intend to create. It’s more than merely thinking ten steps ahead of a competitor. It is a level of perspicacity that’s rare to anyone not born of Chancellor blood.”

  Connor scrunched his lips together.

  “Perspi-what?”

  “Insight, my boy. Perceptiveness. For example, I display a hundred dataflicks in front of you. Each one contains a random piece of news from somewhere in the Collectorate.”

  Connor wasn’t a big fan of reading, but his eyes locked in. He must have thought Gramp was introducing a game.

  The boy loved his games.

  “All the planets or just a few?”

  “All forty. Now, a quick read might suggest few similarities. But what if you saw them all as connected? What if you could reassemble them to forecast the future?”

  Trevor heard this nugget before, so he gladly let Connor take it.

  “That would be wild, Gramp,” little brother said. “But why would I want to?”

  “Simple, my boy. To leverage the future. It’s one thing to dream of what you want to do when you’re old enough. It’s another to actively build your plan from its foundation. For instance, look around! This station emerged from our Civil War. I anticipated the decline of our caste and the inevitable reshuffling of life on the colonies.”

  Trevor sighed. The speech would go on a bit, a testimonial to Max’s greatness. How he knew Earth would reorganize into an egalitarian society, how it would need strong trade with its former colonies, how a new interstellar alliance would rise and require a centralized government. How Ark Carriers could be refashioned to house the government in a neutral system. Presto! Legacy!

  Connor tuned in, perhaps more attentive than the previous times he only appeared to show interest in Gramp’s tales of glory.

  “You saying Chancellors can see the future?” He asked.

  “No. We’re not mystics or conjurers, but we are gifted with the ability to see patterns and understand their relevance. We use that ability to nurture our own ambitions, as Chancellors have since the first of us, Johannes Ericsson.”

  Trevor took a turn rolling his eyes.

  Ugh. The Ericsson myth. Again.

  “He was imbued with a divine intelligence that allowed him to map out three thousand years of human endeavor. He saw every strategy necessary to conquer and subjugate all ethnics not of his kind. That intelligence was not only passed down through his line, but engineered into the countless family branches. Just because the Chancellory no longer rules humanity does not mean you lack the tools to gain similar leverage over the future.”

  Trevor had read it all, from the propaganda to documented history. Yes, his ancestors were visionary; they learned how to crush every opponent and lord over them for centuries. They seemed to have special insight into the weaknesses of anyone not born to the caste. The wealth, the military might, the technology – it was all theirs. They controlled the stars unchallenged.

  Yet they fell from power in a blink.

  Trevor heard quite enough.

  “Connor, what Gramp is saying: Pay attention to everything going on around you. Read and study. Learn from history. It will help you understand how to manage your own life.”

  Connor tucked his tongue inside his cheek.

  “Oh. I get it now. But that sounds like a lot of work, Trev-or.”

  Max glared at Trevor as if he were a third leg. Perhaps Max knew the oldest was a lost cause but remained hopeful Connor might fall for his indoctrination.

  “I’m disappointed, Trevor. You often display the best traits of a quality Chancellor. Your obsession with detail. Your ability to solve the most complex problems in your Tier III studies. Your paranoia. The way you analyze everyone who comes into your orbit.”

  “What does that even mean, Gramp?”

  “You hear life’s underlying melody. You are constantly trying to make sense of a puzzle ordinary humans don’t know exists. You are the most voracious reader I’ve ever encountered, Trevor. You are searching for ways to rearrange the pieces.”

  Trevor would’ve laughed, but he didn’t want to piss off Gramp. Instead, he settled for the lazy reply.

  “And why am I doing that, Gramp?”

  “Because it was engineered into your genes. Move past this self-loathing Chancellor phase. You’ll see what I mean.”

  “OK. Will I experience a sudden revelation?”

  Max sneered at his grandson’s snark.

  “Mock me. It will make no difference. But a day will come when you are staring at all the tiny swaths of fabric meant to form a tapestry. You will see how to stitch them together. That moment will change your life, perhaps even history itself.”

  Then the old man roundly sighed.

  “Unless, of course, you continue with this cynical deconstruction of your ancestors. Such a shame if you fell short of your potential.”

  “Yeah, Trevor.” Connor stuck out his tongue. “A real shame.”

  Trevor didn’t talk back. Instead, he realized just how much Connor would have to be untaught.

  Which is precisely what he tried to do while Connor remained under Max’s influence. After they moved into their own flat together, the brothers stopped talking about the past. Trevor realized Connor didn’t especially care one way or the other. The past felt as irrelevant to him as the future. The wild child was always happy but aimless.

  Just once did Max sit down with Trevor and voice concern about Connor’s future. Five months later, his heart stopped while he slept.

  At the service, Trevor listened to the eulogies and admitted the one thing he never told Gramp:

  “You were right.”

  Trevor never pinpointed when the trait first took shape, but it guided every important decision. It drew him to Effie and told him to give his whole heart to Ana Marie.

  No detail bypassed him. Subtle body language, inartful tics, perceived slights, secondhand rumors, circumstantial evidence. He recognized Amity’s class divide, the hubris of the ruling elite, and their pursuit of personal agendas over the greater welfare. He felt a slow, inexorable shift from the station’s original, noble mission.

  Life’s underlying melody.

  “You were right.”

  The variant swaths of fabric tightened into a more definable tapestry when Black Star entered the picture. All news about the emerging threat drew him deeper into research. His dreams spoke of a new darkness sweeping between the star systems. The transition away from enlightenment and hope gathered steam.

  Pieces realigned. A picture formed.

  If any leverage was to be had, as Max always insisted, the time for it was slipping away.

  Trevor dismissed his nightmares as paranoia run amok. He carried them alone. Why frighten Effie? Why bore or confuse Connor? They needed a clear-headed husband, father, brother.

  Now Ulbrecht Hann was dead. Black Star encroached on this great sanctuary, but it had yet to win.

  Solving this murder was vital. Proving the link to Black Star and uncovering its agents on the inside even more critical.

  Dozens of dataflicks and the AI-generated trend waves from LinkPass histories hovered around Trevor in his Sec Admin office.

  “You were right, Gramp.”

  Trevor let go of his last inhibition and saw the tapestry emerge.

  Six hours after the security conference at Central, the case came together. When it was solved, they’d call him a hero. His good name would be restored.

  But Amity Station’s reputation would be destroyed.

  23

  TREVOR FOUND THE SOLUTION when he realized his biggest mistake. It was a foolish oversight, made clear after he had time alone to deep-dive into the evidence without distraction. He had sent Hoshi and two other Second Deputies to Maynor School to interview more students about Ulbrecht, whose death went public overnight.

  “If you receive pushback from Thet or the mentors, tell them to complain to Central. We won’t tolerate interference.”

  Hoshi played along like a pro, but Trevor sensed reluctance.

  “Should we reinterview his mentee group? They’ve had a day to sit on this. They might be more forthcoming.”

  Trevor considered what the LinkPass history had already revealed and wagged a finger.

  “No. Not yet. I need to connect a few dots first.”

  Trevor burrowed into the data. Instinct screamed: The answers are here! Two hours later, feeling on the cusp of seeing the full tapestry, Trevor slammed a fist on his desk.

  “I had it backwards,” he muttered. “Why didn’t I see it sooner?”

  “See what?”

  Shit. Back already? You should’ve been gone another hour.

  Hoshi stood in the open door with her colleagues.

  “Sorry, Trev. Only caught that last bit. Have you figured it out?”

  “Could be. Learn anything at Maynor?”

  “Well, we confirmed that the place is every bit as surreal as it seemed yesterday. The students are strange, Trev.”

  He needed to pursue the evidence. Enough with the diversions.

  “How so?”

  “They’re carrying too big a weight.”

  “Exhaustion? Stress? Or good old fashioned secrets?”

  “We can’t put a finger on it. They didn’t have much to say about Ulbrecht. Most knew of him by reputation but no more. And the ones who did, offered nothing of value. The news hit hard.”

  “Good. File your reports and uplink them to the case spool.”

  Hoshi sent her colleagues away to do just that then took a seat beside Trevor. If she had just given him another ten minutes ...

  “OK, Trev. They’re gone. What didn’t you see sooner?”

  You got nowhere to send her. Out with it, jackass!

  “I know how the killer did it,” he said.

  Hoshi gasped. “Someone forced him to take Motif?”

  “That we won’t know until we catch the suspect. Here’s the issue: We trusted the LinkPass history to tell us who entered Ulbrecht’s flat and when. Since no one entered with or after Ulbrecht, we assumed he already possessed the Motif when he returned from Raison Club.”

  She nodded. “Naturally.”

  “I should know better than to trust a foolproof system.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “When Ulbrecht came home, the suspect was waiting for him inside the flat.”

  Hoshi’s double-take fit the moment.

  “Whoa. Wait, Trev. You’re saying someone accessed his flat while he was out. How? LinkPass shows no one except Ulbrecht.”

  “Correct. That’s what it shows. It’s wrong.”

  “How?”

  “Hoshi, we have close to a million access points on Amity.” He held up his right thumb. “No entry without a verified gene stamp. It’s the law. There’s never been one verifiable error in the reporting matrix.”

  “Because it’s foolproof.”

  Trevor snapped his fingers.

  “Unless you happen to be equipped with a program that skirts around even a perfect system.”

  Clarity slapped Hoshi upside the head, but she didn’t show it with the wide-eyed fascination Trevor expected.

  “You can’t be serious, Trev. Ulbrecht’s secret program?”

  “Yes. His phantom drill. I believe Ulbrecht sold it a while ago. Either the buyer or an associate used the phantom drill to enter Flat 529, overriding the required gene stamp. It wouldn’t have been detected by the LinkPass reporting system. The suspect waited for Ulbrecht then either convinced or forced him to ingest the Motif.”

  Hoshi buried her face in her hands and took a deep breath.

  “That’s an incredible stretch. Can you prove it?”

  “I will. Hoshi, do you remember how immaculate his flat was when we entered? Other than the bedroom, it was spotless.”

  “Sure, but what that does prove?”

  “When I went back there yesterday to look for his pom, I checked everywhere, even inside his kiosk. I thought maybe if he wanted to hide it from a thief ...”

  Grandfather Max would’ve been proud of his attention to detail.

  “I know, I know. Long odds. But I reviewed the kiosk production log. I was curious when he last used it.”

  “And?”

  “The night before he died, roughly the same timeframe, he made a cup of Flojot.”

  Hoshi grimaced. “Never heard of it.”

  “It’s a restorative health drink, popular on Yaniff. Supposed to guarantee better sleep. Here’s the thing, Hoshi: He made Flojot for sixty nights in a row after returning home. Ulbrecht was a creature of habit. The night he died, no Flojot. Why? I don’t believe he had the chance. Someone was waiting for him.”

  Trevor thought he’d pulled off a feat of superb detective work. Hoshi couldn’t restrain her giddiness.

  “That one, I give you, Trev. Very impressive. But it’s just an aberration in a man’s routine. You need proof.”

  “I have it.”

  He flipped a wrist toward the dataflicks like a conjurer in the midst of a magic trick.