“It says that about everything you ask for,” Matt said.

  “So, do you think we should worry about her?” I asked.

  “Why? It seems to me that each of her personalities has a different skill. It’s like having an entire crew in one person. We lucked out there.”

  “I doubt it was luck. Have you seen her janitor look yet?”

  “No.”

  I smiled, sensing my chance as the shutter opened again, a hot cup of coffee behind it. I picked it up and carried it to the table, sitting across from Matt. “I ran into her coming out of the shower. She was bringing raw materials to the assembler.”

  “Raw materials?”

  “Yeah.” I tugged my shirt again. “Apparently we wouldn’t have these clothes without them.” I paused dramatically. “Or the breakfast we ate.”

  He side-eyed me, knowing me well enough to know I was up to no good. “What kind of raw materials?”

  I smiled ghoulishly. “You can’t make bacon from a spacesuit.”

  His face paled, and he pushed his chair away from the table. “Oh man. Ugh. Tell me you’re kidding.”

  “Not kidding,” I said. “Soylent Green.”

  He gagged on the idea, shaking his head. “You seem way too okay with this.”

  I let him cough and make faces for a little longer before replying. “As Alter put it, the assembler breaks the materials down to their raw state and recombines the atomic structures. So it’s not really what it started out as anymore. And, it’s the only source of protein we have. Since we can’t buy any food right now, it’s the only way we can eat.”

  Matt glared at me, thinking about what I had said. Some of the color returned to his face, and he smiled. “You set me up to tell me that.”

  “Maybe.”

  “Asshole.”

  I laughed. “I had the same reaction when Alter told me. I didn’t want you to miss the experience. Honestly, I doubt anyone out here thinks much of it. They’re just reusing everything they can. Saving resources.”

  “I need a little time to let that sink in before I ask the assembler to make me anything else.” He returned to the table, eying his coffee a bit differently than before. “You don’t think this is made from blood, do you?”

  I looked at my coffee. “I don’t know. I guess it could be, at least in part. But for all we know, it also has molecules from the spacesuit in it. I think the best thing to do is not try to figure out where it came from. Just enjoy that you have it at all.”

  He picked up the mug. “Cheers to that.”

  “Getting back to Alter,” I said. “Multiple personalities is one thing. But she looks different. And not just a little. Her muscle density changes. Her height.”

  Matt shrugged. “What do you want to do about it? Keep said she was one of the top assassins in the Spiral. She’s done nothing but help us since we met her. Who cares how she does it? What if she isn’t human? Does it matter?”

  I smiled sheepishly. “No. I guess not.”

  “So why are you thinking about it so much?”

  “I don’t know.” I paused, trying to answer the question internally. “What if she’s still working for Keep?”

  “What do you mean? Like a spy?”

  “Yeah, I guess.”

  “Why would he spy on us?”

  “I don’t know. Why would he do anything? The point is, we hardly knew him, and we hardly know her. What if this is a longer con than we think?”

  “If it gets you to the guy who can remove your tumor and cure your cancer, I don’t care if it is. But you saw how she reacted to Keep taking all the cash. She definitely wasn’t happy. She didn’t expect it.”

  “Yeah. You’re probably right. Should we go wait for her in the living room?”

  “Sure. I’ll go change first. Maybe once we’ve gotten more information out of her, you won’t be so paranoid.”

  “Pot. Kettle. Black,” I replied. “Who’s paranoid?”

  “I’m good now. Kind of glad to be here, even if I do die an early death. Blaze of glory, maybe.” He smiled. “You know what I’m really curious about?”

  “What’s that?”

  “What the music is like here. And if they still use guitars.”

  I smiled. “I hadn’t thought about it, but me too. Maybe Levi can play us some modern tunes while we wait for Alter.”

  “You took to that fast.”

  “What?”

  “Calling the ship’s computer Levi.”

  I shrugged. “That’s what you named it. It’s probably better than Asshole.”

  “Probably?” He laughed. “I have an idea for the ship’s name, too.”

  “I’m listening.”

  “Head Case.” He froze, waiting for my reaction. “You know, because it’s a robot head. And maybe we’re a little crazy. After all, we did pick a fight with one of the most powerful nobles in the Quadrant.”

  “Not intentionally.”

  “It is what it is.”

  “Head Case,” I said, trying it out before shrugging. “It’s better than ship identifier CUL8TR,” I added, mimicking the Caprum bursar’s voice and tone. “That’s a mouthful.”

  “So it has your vote?”

  “We are definitely crazy. And this is definitely a robot head. So yeah, sure.”

  He smiled and pulled out his phone to enter the name. “Head Case it is.”

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  The Manticore Spiral had music.

  It was terrible.

  Maybe Matt and I were too far behind the curve. Maybe we didn’t understand music that had evolved from whatever it sounded like on Earth four hundred years into the future, when the intrepid explorers had been thrown back in time. Which, come to think of it, was something else I wanted to learn a lot more about. Maybe our ears just weren’t seasoned for the even heavier bass than what we were accustomed to, the more deeply synthesized harmonies, and the screeching, overly digitized singing and disgustingly sappy lyrics. It was like K-pop on steroids, with extra candy coating meant to be consumed by robots.

  It was bad.

  We left it on anyway, playing through speakers spread across the living room, hoping with the end of one song that the next would be better, each time groaning as we tortured ourselves with more of the same. Our only saving grace was that Alter came to save us within twenty minutes of our listening session, sneaking up on us as we stared out the window into the endless expanse of a space filled with thousands of stars.

  The view was almost enough to forget about the racket.

  “Ben, Matt,” she said, shouting over the music.

  We turned around. I expected to see another version of Alter standing there. I didn’t expect her hair to be up in a bun or with large, thick-rimmed glasses over her eyes, not to mention the light pink tweed jacket and mini-skirt she wore. Her legs were shapely and well toned, a similar skin tone to Matt’s light tan. I thought maybe she would be in heels too, but she still wore the ankle-high boots with the magnets in the soles. Just in case, I guess.

  “Let me guess, Librarian Alter?” Matt said.

  “What?” she replied, staring at him with sincere confusion.

  “Nevermind,” he said with a slight smirk.

  “Planet Candy Kisses,” she said, bopping her head to the beat of the background music. “I love this one.”

  “Please don’t start singing,” I said.

  “Maybe later,” she said, smiling. “We need to talk shop. Matt, can you kill the music?”

  “Permanently?” he replied. “I wish.” He tapped on his phone, shutting it off and exhaling sharply. “I can feel myself getting smarter already.”

  “You don’t like it?” Alter asked. “It’s a top one hundred hit.”

  “Was it produced by AI or something?”

  “How did you know?”

  “That explains a lot,” I said. “Do you have rock and roll in the Spiral?”

  “Of course. It’s just not that popular here.”

  “No accounting for taste,” Matt muttered.

  “Shall we head up to the conference room?” Alter asked.

  “Sure,” I said.

  We headed out of the common room to the elevator, taking it back to Deck Four. The conference room was to the right of the flight deck, a simple space with six seats around a rectangular, black-topped table. Matt and I each took a side, leaving Alter the head. She seemed a little surprised by our deference, but when it came to talking about the Spiral and our place in it, she was definitely in charge.

  “Okay,” she said, tapping on her edge of the table.

  The whole tabletop turned into a large screen, with a set of symbols at Alter’s fingertips and a control interface that matched the screensaver on Keep’s phone. She tapped on the interface, quickly switching the display to the starmap we had seen earlier.

  “I already showed you our position in the Quadrant,” she said, using the controls to zoom in until she pinpointed Head Case on the map. “Right now, we’re as far off the main grid, away from all of the main hyperspace transfer routes, as we could get. We have a few options regarding where we go next, but it all depends on how we decide to prioritize and proceed.”

  “Hold on,” I said. “That’s all important, I agree. And I think we have a good idea of our ultimate goal already. But before we get there, I think Matt and I need a bit more of a crash course on what it means to own a starship in the Spiral. More specifically, both Sedaya and the mercenary who talked to Keep mentioned being unaffiliated as if it’s something outside the norm.”

  “Yes,” Alter said. “Being unaffiliated is—”

  “Just a second,” Matt interrupted. “I think we need to clear something else up, first.”

  “What’s that?” I asked.

  He turned to Alter. Their eyes met. “Alter, are you a spy for Keep?”

  I practically fell out of my chair. So much for being subtle.

  “No,” she replied without hesitation. “But I do understand why you might have come to that conclusion. I’ve spent the last twenty years in his company. But I followed him because of this ship. Just like I’m here now because of this ship.”

  “So your main concern is the ship,” Matt said.

  “I thought that was understood.”

  “It is,” I said. “We’re just confirming. If Sedaya had bought Head Case, would you have stayed with it and served him?”

  “Head Case?” she replied.

  “That’s her new name.”

  Alter puckered her lips while she considered. “Head Case. I like it.” She paused, still thinking about my question. “I don’t know. I’m sure Avelus told you I used to work for Sedaya. Until one day I decided I didn’t want to do the type of jobs he wanted me to do anymore. I thought after years of serving him, he would appreciate the work I had done and let me move on to become a pilot or a mechanic. Instead, he threw me out with the trash.”

  “Yeah, Keep did tell us about that,” I said. “I’m sorry he treated you so badly. How did you wind up living in the ship’s original structure?”

  “All of the non-Acheon settlements in Demitrus are crime-ridden slums. No laws. No rules. Most who wind up there don’t survive more than a few weeks. The ones that do either become more and more savage or they leave the settlement and venture out into the waste in search of a more peaceful existence.”

  “I guess you chose that option?”

  “As soon as I could. The others on Demitrus didn’t know who I was. They wanted to control me. I didn’t let them. I killed one of the most powerful bosses on the planet, which caused an abundance of headhunters to come after me, hoping to earn a large reward. They followed me halfway across the planet, until finally I found peace in what remained of a large mech head, clearly destroyed in a battle somewhere. The only entrance was a small gap between it and the sand, down the side of a dune and into a hole in the front where the hangar doors are now. I would push sand into the gap when I slept, completely hidden from the outside world, only leaving to scavenge food and water.”

  “That sounds awful.”

  “It wasn’t,” Alter said, shaking her head. “Not after everything else I’d already been through. All I wanted was peace, and I found it there, living in silence and secrecy. The individuals chasing me finally believed me to be dead and gave up the hunt, and I gained my first taste of true freedom.”

  “Until Keep showed up,” Matt said.

  “Not Avelus. The Acheon. They build burrows in the sand, and had a colony near my home. They don’t pay any attention to any species that isn’t theirs. Whether by bad luck or destiny, when Avelus came to them looking for a ship, they chose this head.”

  “And you didn’t try to stop them?”

  “How could I? There are billions of Acheon on Demitrus, and they wouldn’t hesitate to harm me if I intentionally harmed any of them. I could have left and found another place to live, but I didn’t want that. I met Avelus soon after. He knew who I was right away, just from my reputation. He could have turned me in and collected a huge reward. He chose to allow me to stay with my home in exchange for my help caring for it. I knew he wanted to sell the ship to put the Star out of Sedaya’s reach. I didn’t know he planned to leave the way he did, though I should have suspected he wouldn’t give you time to acclimate before throwing you into the fire. But I suppose forced learning is the most effective.”

  “I don’t really understand,” I said. “He spent all of those years looking for a buyer just to transfer ownership of the Star of Caprum? An item we could easily sell to Sedaya or the highest bidder?”

  “Sedaya would never buy it from you, no matter what the Niflin said. And there won’t be any other bidders as long as it’s known that he wants the Star.”

  “And so we have to play keep away with it,” Matt said.

  “That was his plan all along, wasn’t it?” I asked. “That’s why he needed someone who showed skill as a pilot. He needed someone with a chance to evade Sedaya’s forces.”

  “It’s also why he needed someone from Earth,” Alter agreed.

  “Because we’re unaffiliated,” I guessed.

  “Yes.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “Who cares what it means,” Matt said. “Keep set us up, and you knew he was setting us up.” He thrust his finger at Alter. “It doesn’t matter if you expected him to pay for parking or not. You knew what would happen with Sedaya and what it would mean for us.”

  “Matt,” I said, trying to calm him down as his volume increased.

  “You didn’t say anything,” he continued, shouting now. “You didn’t warn us of what we were getting into.”

  Alter was unruffled by both his raised voice and his accusations. “Why would I warn you?” she asked. “If you hadn’t bought the ship when you did, it would be in Sedaya’s hands right now. So would I.”

  “So you’re looking out for yourself.”

  “Again, I thought that was understood.”

  Matt froze, his entire argument shattered by the fact that Alter had made the best decisions for herself and not a couple of strangers. His face flushed, and he slumped in his seat, silent.

  “Besides,” Alter continued. “I’m not going to just let Sedaya capture or destroy us. I think I proved that already. Your best interests and my best interests are the same.”

  “Right now,” Matt grumbled. “What if that changes?”

  “As long as you don’t intend to turn the ship over to Sedaya, that won’t change.”

  “What about if we give him the Star?” I asked.

  “You’ll need to replace it as a power source. It won't be quick or inexpensive.”

  “But you don’t have a problem with that?”

  “Why would I? The Star is a tool. A unique tool, but it still serves a specific purpose and can be replaced. Not as easily because of the nature of the ship. But before you get any ideas, understand that it won’t be as simple to appease Sedaya as turning over the Star. He’s a man who holds grudges, and our escape is an embarrassment to him.”

  “So we’re screwed when it comes to getting him off our asses,” Matt said.

  “That might not be a bad thing.”

  “Why not?”

  “Sedaya is powerful, but he also has plenty of enemies. You have a reason to dislike him. You’re unaffiliated. That means you can move against him without drawing attention to anyone who might hire you to make those moves.”

  I glanced at Matt. He looked back at me. I could tell by his face he wasn’t totally comfortable with the idea Alter had just floated. Neither was I. My gaze shifted back to our strange companion.

  “There’s only one problem,” I said. “I don’t think we want to be, what? Mercenaries? Guns for hire?”

  Alter wasn’t fazed. “What do you want to be, then?”

  “What other options are there?” I replied.

  “To put a starship to good use? Cargo hauler. Salvage crew. VIP transport.”

  “I kind of thought we would just fly around and check out all of the different planets.”

  Alter raised an eyebrow over the rim of her glasses. “And how are you going to pay for these excursions? For food and water and maintenance? And ultimately for surgery?”

  “I know, we need to do something to make money. What pays the best?”

  Her eyebrow had dropped, but it went up again just as quickly. “I’ll give you one guess.”

  “Gun for hire,” I said, not all that thrilled with the answer.

  “Or smuggler,” Alter said. “Which is almost as dangerous. The greater the risk, the bigger the reward.”

  “Right. How big a reward do we need to convince your contact to fix me?”

  “One good job should be enough.”

  “I assume you know where to find that job?”

  “Of course.”

  I looked at Matt again. “What do you think?”

  He shrugged. “I think we don’t have a lot of choices. Can you go into more detail about what being unaffiliated means? Keep went through a lot of trouble to sell this ship to Earthians.”

  “The Hegemony is a modern feudal society,” Alter answered. “That means every individual that’s born within it is subject to the noble whose flag their planet falls under. It’s a deeply ingrained part of living in the Manticore Spiral.”