“If you love me, you won’t have to care about anyone else,” Ryllen told Exeter two days ago on Hokkaido, their last time alone together. “We can kill them all and leave. They’ll never see us coming.”

  “You would do that, RJ? After everything we sacrificed?”

  “We’re back home now. It’s why we fought. And we have Worm. We can go anywhere and never be found. We’ll never grow old and never die together.”

  Ryllen pushed in close, their naked bodies consumed in the chilling water of a grotto three hundred meters from camp. He kissed Exeter with a fury pent up by the chaos of their return across the divide.

  “I’ll go anywhere with you, RJ. But what’s the purpose in running away? There’s so much to do.”

  “And people who expect me to do it. If we stay, we’ll always be fighting wars and always killing. The Talons don’t know any other way of life, and they’ll never adjust to peace.”

  “But they love you, RJ. They owe you their lives many times over. And what about Kara? We destroyed her life and promised it wouldn’t be pointless. You’d kill her, too?”

  “I don’t know.” He hugged Exeter as if unable to let go. “I’m tired of living up to debts. The cudfrucking weight is too much! The Talons think I can’t make a mistake because I’m lucky, but that streak’s bound to end. Ham doesn’t trust me, but he won’t challenge me as long as I have the Talons. Plus, he owes me for saving Mi Cha. And the deal with Ya-Li Taron? Why did I ever agree to it?”

  “Because it was our only way back, RJ. He and his fragment got us home. Eliminating his relatives and handing over the Splinter was a fair trade. Good riddance. That cube ruined our lives.”

  “And if Ya-Li burns this planet because he’s not so much the genius? What then? I grew up here. It’s a debt I won’t be able to pay.”

  Exeter ran his hands through Ryllen’s bountiful braids.

  “We have to trust him. Ya-Li has a good plan. He’ll take his time.”

  “If the Splinter doesn’t consume him. X, he’s not like us. We won’t have to fight off any fragments.”

  “It’s too late to turn back, RJ – unless you want to kill Ya-Li, too.”

  Their sojourn in the grotto ended on a quiet note. They returned to the Scramjet, inserted themselves into Recon tubes, and resuited inside an impregnable black cocoon.

  Time to be a leader. Time to manage ambitions, skillsets, and temperaments. Time to be a savior. Time to speak with a calm discipline and know when to deliver a hammer blow or a soft touch. Time to make them believe Exeter received no favorable treatment. Time to save the cudfrucking universe.

  It would have been so much easier to kill them and move on.

  And then there was the artful deal to make Ham the Admiral and give him final say over logistical matters. It seemed like a smart political move to create a unifying figure to bring two sides together. Maybe it worked to a slim degree, but Ryllen regretted ceding any power though he hated it all.

  This moment was the product of his deal. Rather than overseeing base operations from C&C, he searched the station’s demonstration lab with two Green Sun agents. He knew little about Muna Fei, who fought for the cause on one of the lesser islands of The Lagos. She followed orders but spent an inordinate amount of time talking about her family and why each should be considered a traitor. The other was Po Wynn, who shared a brief history with Ryllen pre-Splinter but most recently refused to work until he took a shit.

  They followed Ryllen in here rather than tagging along with Force Carmel, the Talon assigned to this team. Ryllen thought it was a mutual decision. Force was the only Talon who openly disagreed with bringing Hokkis into the fold; Muna and Po felt more at ease with someone who used to fight for their cause. Ryllen would have preferred to work alone, like he did during his thirteen-month exile from Green Sun. He did his best living in the shadows of Pinchon.

  The demonstration lab was the largest workspace on the surface. It once housed Chancellor chemists who studied brontinium extract during the refinery’s heyday. They conducted quality control tests on the genetic drug critical to Chancellors’ enhanced anatomy. Amayas entertained Exeter with old secure cam vids while explaining the rise and fall of the Chancellory. The Inventor made considerable changes.

  While a few of the old lab stations remained – all on the periphery – a large conference table surrounded by comfortable chairs and a plate in the center dominated. Above, a network of thumb-sized lasers dangled from a hexagonal series of conduits. Ryllen questioned its purpose before doling out instructions to the tagalongs.

  “Split up,” he told them. “One station at a time. Look for a plate, a Tachtron reader, or handwritten logs. I doubt there’s much to find in here, but even the smallest evidence might help.”

  “What happens,” Muna said, “if we can’t get around the passblock?”

  “If the device is linked to the master directory, you’ll be fine. X said all the surface passblocks were wiped when he brought the station online. If you were listening, you’d know that.”

  She laughed, the awkward sort when people realize they’ve been called to account.

  “I’m not much of a listener.”

  “I know. You must not be interested in surviving the mission.”

  Muna shaded her eyes and selected a workstation. Po did likewise, without a word. Ryllen chose the chair that seemed most comfortable and set his eyes on the central plate. Again, he studied the laser arrangement and pieced a puzzle together, owing to Exeter’s intel.

  “This is where he did it,” Ryllen whispered.

  Twelve chairs. Three Splinters. A hexagon of lasers.

  The math made sense, but something was off.

  Twelve clients would be seated around the table, promised a new vision of life and the universe. First, Amayas activated the Splinters. But from where? Each Splinter represented a different series of paths, new insight into the fragmented universes and variant realities. To operate them all at once without overwhelming the clients required a perfect geometric balance.

  He looked directly above. “There you are.”

  Three white nodes, each resembling a small fan but no larger than the head of a fork, stood camouflaged against the ceiling. Their relative position was undeniable: The geometric center of three out of six identical triangles. Ryllen had no doubt if he activated the plate, he’d find the controls to lower those nodes. They were magnetic grapplers for the Splinters.

  The lasers captured the light and intensified each set of paths.

  To what end? What did the Inventor know to inspire this design? Ryllen spent years listening to the songs of his own cube, mastering its patterns, searching in vain for a way back across the divide.

  “What’s your secret?”

  He traced his palm over a clear glass pad melded to the desk and awoke the plate. The hologram invited him to explore, as if its operating system had been reset from scratch – not a good sign.

  Indeed, the surface directories were devoid of schematics, histories, or any form of data. Frustration set in.

  “Any progress?” He asked Po and Muna.

  “Would be nice to know what I’m looking for,” Muna said, her frustration as evident.

  “Try reading. You’ll know it when you see it.”

  “Not helpful.”

  Po lowered his head, as if embarrassed.

  “So far, there’s enough to keep me busy for a year, I’d say. But it’s all chemistry. Looks like it’s at least twenty years old. I was never good at chemistry.”

  “That’s refinery business, Po. Won’t do us any good. Keep checking the date stamps and go down as far as you can.”

  “If I don’t find anything, what do I …?”

  Ryllen pounded the table. “Then move on to the next station. Don’t be an ass.”

  “Hah!” Muna interjected. “My Aunt Neeja said that from sunup to sundown. She thought everyone was an ass. What a miserable coit. Four miscarriages and a steady dose of blame to go around. To hear that woman come through the front door ruined your day. Swallowed by a sinkhole, was what it was like. I …”

  Ryllen turned, trying his best not to brandish a side pistol.

  “Sounds like you’d have done better to ace that lot instead of signing up to kill immos.” When he determined Muna was sufficiently shocked, he continued. “I know all about having shit for family, but I don’t replay it like a walking kaleidosound. Shut up, do your job, or I’ll send you outside where there’s no cascade barrier. You’ll have about thirty seconds to wish you’d never left The Lagos.”

  Maybe Force Carmel was right about the Hokkis.

  Ryllen also knew he was being unfair. Most of his Green Sun brothers and sisters came to the cause not from a sense of nobility or patriotism. Anger drew them in. Family estrangement was a common thread. Immos were often no more than a convenient target to unleash their disaffection upon. Kai Durin, his first love, found Ryllen living on the streets after the House of Jee tossed him out.

  It was another lifetime. Before he learned the truth about his immortality; before he encountered the Splinter.

  “Enough.”

  He returned his focus to the plate and dug deeper. He anticipated finding hundreds of vids of indoctrination sessions. Exeter estimated more than three thousand clients visited from at least ten colonies. “The primaries,” Amayas called them. These primaries then organized satellite indoctrinations at remote locations on three planets. The most popular was Hokkaido’s Mangum Island. Ryllen and Po were there that night alongside Ham when they attacked the landing site of a ship none of them realized had leapt across universes.

  The first of its kind. The end of life as Ryllen knew it.

  He dived into the belly of this plate’s memory systems and found nothing he desired. Only at the bottom did he scrape out a carefully disguised file. He threw it open. It was the lab’s original design. The date stamp: SD 75, SY 5321.

  Forty-five years ago. Was the station that old? Or was this merely an architect’s vision of a new purpose for the space? Did it matter? They were refining brontinium for an empire in no danger of collapse, a good two decades before Chancellors on Earth created abominations and immortals who would catch the empire sleeping.

  As an historical artifact, maybe it had some quaint value. Otherwise, the schematic represented another frustration. He’d seen enough. What to do now? Join the Hokkis at these workstations and pour over chemistry analyses? He’d best serve everyone by returning to C&C. What was happening down below with X? It had to be more fruitful than …

  The schematic tilted on its own. Did he imagine the briefest flicker, like a glow emanating from beneath the design? He reached into the hologram and grabbed the schematic, trying to twist and turn it. Sometimes, multi-page elements could be flipped and reorganized. This one seemed resistant to his efforts.

  “Hold on …”

  He grabbed the design by its corners and pulled in different directions, as if to tear in two.

  “For all the damn rings!”

  A flashing red beacon tumbled out, as if from an envelope. It landed at the base of the hologram and pulsated. Ryllen tapped it.

  A Splinter grew until it filled the breadth of the conference table. The singularity at its center pulsated to the same rhythm.

  Po and Muna left their stations and stood slack jawed.

  “Is it?” Po asked.

  “No,” Ryllen said. “It’s a hologram. But I know its purpose.”

  He climbed onto the table, engulfed by the image, and touched the singularity. A shadowy face of a bearded man appeared.

  “Welcome home, Exeter,” the Inventor said. “I missed you.”

  11

  H AM CORTEZ KNEW SOMETHING was off the moment he entered the Artemis mainframe. The security and maintenance logs were too well organized. The station’s power grid reported no inconsistencies, despite its inability to raise the cascade barrier around the perimeter. He found no reports about the destruction of the railgun. All primary records suggested the station operated at full functionality before the crew conducted a clean shutdown before departure. He explained his concerns to a pair of Talons who helped Exeter during station restart.

  “You said the Functional Core required two hours to come online,” he told Leto Ahmed and Paul Ochoba. “Yet logs indicate the Inventor shut down the station nine days ago. I know F-Cores well. Their catalyzing rings maintain fluidity for seventy standard days. Restarting atmospheric controls within that window should require minutes, not hours. Do you have an explanation?”

  Leto and Paul were rough trade, their scars and terse commentary evidence of men who suffered long and earned a wary touch. Yet Ham admired their professionalism. They performed with precision and patience – a far cry from the one Hokki in C&C, Hoshi Negani, whose inferiority complex banged a loud drum. Ham occupied her with other, less important tasks before he shared his suspicions with the Talons. Presently, she was dealing with a roster request from Yusef Matook.

  Leto, whose thick black beard showed the first tinges of gray, grunted his nonconcern.

  “F-Cores are old systems, Admiral. C-rings are outdated tech. We’re blessed they work at all.”

  Paul, a clean-shaven redhead, nodded. “The Collectorate phased out C-rings a century ago. They were inefficient and expensive.”

  “On your side, perhaps,” Ham said. “They are standard for every remote base and space station where I’ve served. They hold a spotless record.”

  Leto scratched his beard. “What do you imply, Admiral?”

  “Exeter claims he left Artemis a hundred eighteen standard days ago on this calendar. He said the Inventor was planning to leave as well. Seemed desperate to do so. Yet the station logs say the departure and shutdown took place nine days ago. In addition, we have been told about a railgun used to destroy the Herodotus. And something was, in fact, obliterated on the outskirts of Artemis. However, there are no historical records of a railgun – or any defense system. Is it possible Exeter is revising history?”

  Leto and Paul locked eyes.

  “You accuse him of lying?” Paul said.

  “He might be confused. The journey was no doubt traumatic.”

  “Exeter is an honorable soldier and a worthy Talon.”

  Leto added, “He would die for me on the battlefield.”

  “And wake up ten minutes later. I understand. I also have no reason to doubt his qualities as a fighter. Colonel Jee vouches for him. But what of Exeter as a man?”

  Their hesitance gave Ham room to maneuver.

  “Remove the armor and drop your guns. Be ordinary men. Now, view Exeter in the same light. What do you see?”

  Leto shifted uneasily. “You won’t turn us against him.”

  “I’m not trying to. Who is the man beneath the armor? Is he a liar? A manipulator? Would you be his friend in another context?”

  “What do you mean?” Paul asked. “Would I have a drink with him after the war’s over? Yes.”

  “We have shared in blood,” Leto said. “This binds us in all ways.”

  “Your answers don’t add up to a full-throated endorsement.”

  “Admiral, we trust Exeter.” Paul motioned to his workstation. “I prefer returning to my work if all you plan to do is sow dissent.”

  “Not at all. But as you’ve heard me say, we must consider every permutation. I don’t think you trust Exeter. Tell me, what are your thoughts about his relationship with the Colonel? I understand they love each other.”

  The pushback ended. Their jaws clenched; their eyes shaded.

  Ham pressed the case. “I’d never deny anyone the benefits of love. I’m somewhat new to it myself. But when I served in the Unification Guard, we held a very strict code about such matters. Sexual relations between soldiers and their commanding officers were forbidden. Any hint of impropriety was handled swiftly and brutally. Disgrace does not begin to describe the consequences. We believed such intimacy compromised the command structure. What do the Talons believe?”

  Paul sighed. “The same.”

  “Say no more.”

  “We owe everything to the Colonel. We try to look past …”

  “Say. No. More. I understand. The Colonel and I talked of this at great length on the island. He refused my recommendation. I wish you to ponder a different scenario. What if Exeter embellished his story? What if, rather than returning here for revenge, he is completing a mission for Amayas Knight? What if he has kept the Colonel in the dark and used sexual intimacy to process an agenda?”

  Leto waved a skeptical hand. “You mean to say, he always knew we’d end up here?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why?”

  “I’ve no idea. But he’s immortal, which gives him an open invitation to high-risk ventures.”

  “No. It’s not possible.”

  “Why?”

  “He’s not …”

  “Smart enough? I agree. Exeter is many things, but a master of the long game he is not. Unfortunately, I have only one other viable working theory, and I hope to be wrong. We’ll need to conduct a deeper study of all system logs. Leto, I’m going to transfer maintenance to you. Paul, correlate the transport history. Analyze everything: Humans, cargo, food. All of it. Go back four years.”

  “What are we looking for?”

  “The wrong fingerprints.”

  The answer didn’t satisfy them, but Ham dared not elaborate. If his paranoia was leading him down the correct path, he’d need more evidence than a fearful twitch in his gut.

  Ten minutes later, his search for confirmation ended when the plate on the light table ignited with the face of Cando Aleksanyan.

  “Admiral,” he said. “We’ve found a survivor down here.”

  “Clarify, if you would. Survivor?”

  “She’s alive, but don’t know for how long. Someone from the Inventor’s crew. X claims to know her well.”

  “We surveyed the station, Cando. There were no life signs.”

  “She’s in a stasis tube. No idea how she ended up there.”

  The C&C went quiet.

  This should have been great news. A survivor might answer every question – including the Inventor’s whereabouts. Yet Ham paused. Like in the first minutes of studying the mainframe, he sensed a complication. This wasn’t right.