“You got out of Persephon.”

  “Because their network password was the equivalent of 1-2-3-4-5. Dumb luck.”

  “When dumb luck presents itself, you still need to be smart enough to take advantage of it. In any case, it never hurts to have someone to bounce ideas off.”

  “Like I said, anything that moves us forward. I’m still worried about Matt, Alter, and the others. Especially now. If Sedaya’s decided to give up on us, to me it means he’s either found them or is willing to intensify his efforts to find them.”

  “I can’t argue that logic,” Keep agreed. “I’m searching for the obvious to start. Sashkur Advanced Technologies.” He clicked on the mouse, eyes sweeping across the search results. “Nothing related. That’s probably a good sign.”

  “It would have been nice if they had set up using the same corporate entity.” I paused. “How does that work anyway?”

  “How does what work?”

  “You said the original colonists that settled the Spiral came from this Earth, four hundred years in the future.”

  “Yeah, so?”

  “So, why do you need to buy illegal ivory? Why not play the lotto numbers that you already know are going to hit? Or bet on sports where you already know the outcome? Or invest—”

  “Okay, okay. I see where you’re going with this. That kind of stuff only works in movies.”

  “Why doesn’t it work here?”

  “For one thing, the colonists didn’t know they were going to encounter a shift that put them backwards in time. So they didn’t load up their datastores with sports scores, lotto numbers, and stock tips. For another, existence may not be flat.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Moving through time doesn’t necessarily mean entering one point and exiting another in the same dimension. It’s been theorized that the wormhole actually led into an entirely different plane of the universe where the exit timeline was four hundred years behind the origin timeline. In which case events on Earth might not happen the same for us as they did for the colonists, including lotto numbers, stocks, et cetera. I tend to believe the multi-dimensional theory is the best one because it disallows paradox.”

  “Why? Couldn’t you still marry your mother and give birth to yourself?”

  “No. Because your mother might not exist in the new dimension, or she might not be your mother, or maybe you could have an incestuous relationship with her but the offspring wouldn’t be you. Or, a more realistic example, nothing that happened since we arrived could have happened in the same dimension as the one where the colonists originated. If it did, we could have possibly altered something that would change the entire fate of that timeline and caused the colony ship to never leave Earth. In which case, the Spiral would never be settled for us to wind up back here in the first place. Badabing badaboom. Get it?”

  “I think so. You’re talking about a multiverse.”

  “Bingo!”

  “How many universes do you think there are?”

  “I don’t know. A bajillion?” He smirked. “Sedaya came up goose eggs. Sucaath, nope.”

  “Li’an?” I said.

  “Google changed it to lion. So, either the king of the jungle or a battery.”

  I laughed. “Do you really think we’re going to find them on the internet?”

  “How else does anyone find anything on Earth?” he replied. “We just need the right keywords.”

  “Caprum? Dryka? Sarton?”

  “Negative. Niente. Nein.”

  I walked over to the window and looked out. Bill had set up his barbecue grill just inside the door to the barn, the smoke and smell wafting out and drifting to the house. The sight of the burgers and dogs on the grill made my mouth water. “I didn’t realize how hungry I was until just now.”

  “Concentrate, kid. We’re on the clock. We need to find them before they can take off using our catalyst and leave us stuck here for good.”

  “There’s no other way back?”

  “If there were, don’t you think they would have used it already?”

  “Not if they have a reason to be here like we thought.”

  “You want to risk that?”

  “No.”

  “Me neither.”

  We both fell silent, trying to come up with other ideas on how we might locate Sedaya’s forces. Keep tried a few more searches but his dour expression told me they came up as empty as all the others. Meanwhile, the aroma of cooking meat grew in intensity, causing my stomach to growl and rumble.

  “Maybe we can take a break,” I suggested.

  Keep’s look shut me up and kept me thinking. He was worried about getting stranded here, and I understood why. I didn’t like the thought either, but at least this was my home.

  Then it hit me.

  “The helicopter!” I exclaimed.

  “The Black Hawk?” Keep replied. “What about it?”

  “No. The one they used to take Flippy away. If we knew what kind it was, maybe we could trace it back to where it came from. It would need to have the range to get to the farm and back, right? Which would limit potential sources. And Bill probably knows how to find related records and stuff like that.”

  “Except Kyrie didn’t see the helicopter.”

  “No, but she heard it.”

  Keep jumped out of the seat, a huge grin on his face. It was weird to see his expression turn so excited, rather than guarded and defensive. “Bingo!”

  CHAPTER 31

  “Kyrie,” I said, approaching the girl, who was sitting on a picnic blanket just outside of the barn with Sally, eating a hot dog and potato chips. “We need your help.”

  She looked up at Keep and me, smiling and talking with her mouth full. “You need my help? Really?”

  “Yes, ma’am,” I replied, waiting for her to chew and swallow. “If we played a few sound clips of helicopters for you, do you think you’d be able to pick out the one you heard back at your farm?”

  She pursed her lips thoughtfully before nodding. “I think so.”

  Keep pulled his phone from his pocket. We had spent the last fifteen minutes researching and gathering sound clips for different helicopters that were capable of lifting something the size and weight of Flippy.

  “Okey dokey, kiddo,” Keep said. “Here’s the first one.”

  He hit the play button. Kyrie listened attentively, making a face a few seconds in. “I don’t think it was that one. It’s too fast.”

  “Gotcha,” Keep replied. “Here’s the next one.”

  She shook her head. “Definitely not that one. Much too quiet.”

  “Okay, okay. How about this one?” He played the third.

  “Hmmm. That one is promising,” Kyrie said. “But play the others.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Keep answered, mimicking my tone.

  “No, not that one.”

  “This?” he asked, moving to clip five.

  She wrinkled her face. “Could be.”

  “I have one more. Here we go.”

  She tapped her finger against her mouth. “I don’t think it’s that one. It’s either three or five, I think. Can you play those two?”

  “Hold on, let me delete the others.” He tapped on his cell a few times.

  "Okay, here we go." He played three, and then five.

  “Can you do it again?”

  He repeated the clips, then continued playing them one after another while she listened.

  “It’s five,” she decided.

  “Are you sure?” Keep asked.

  “Pretty sure.”

  “Five it is. Thanks, kiddo.”

  “You’re welcome, Mister Keep.”

  “Are you sure she was right?” I whispered as we left her and Sally to enter the barn.

  “She narrowed it down to two out of six. That might be good enough.”

  Bill had finished cooking up the meat and was leaning against the workbench, two burgers and two dogs on his plate, coated with toppings. He smiled as we neared. “There’s extra in here,” he said, tapping the foil cover of the pan beside him. “Toppings are here.” He indicated the other side of the bench.

  I looked over at Keep. He sighed and motioned to the food, giving me permission to dive in.

  “Ben, is everything okay?” Mom asked. She sat with Marie and Gloria in lawn chairs Marie had brought out from the barn, unfolding them in a circle at the barn entrance. Nick and Sheri had wandered to the other side of the barn and were involved in quiet but intense conversation. After his openly fainthearted display, I kind of hoped she was in the middle of dumping him. Not that I could say for sure that Ben from a month ago would have reacted any differently.

  “Yeah, it’s good, Mom. We think we have a lead.”

  “I knew you could do it.”

  “Are you okay?” I asked back.

  “I might be better than okay,” she replied. “Marie said she might have work for me here if I want it. Free room and board for Sheri and me, fresh air, open spaces.”

  “We could always use more hard workers,” Marie added.

  “Wow,” I said. “That’s incredible. Bill, Marie, I don’t know what to say.”

  “It’s not because we’re playing favorites,” Bill said. “The job opening is real and your mom’s more than qualified. Believe it or not, it can be tough to find people who want to work out here.”

  “What does Sheri think?”

  Mom shrugged. “I’m not sure yet. She’s a little occupied at the moment.”

  “I see that.” I grabbed a hamburger bun and opened the tray, scooping out a patty with a fork. Ketchup, mustard, mayonnaise, a slice of american, and some relish later I had a culinary masterpiece.

  “Bill, we had an idea on how to track down our stolen starfighter,” Keep said. “I played a few sound clips of helicopters for Kyrie. She was torn between the S-64 Skycrane and the CH-53 Super Stallion.”

  “Interesting picks. Both made by Sikorsky, similar rotor diameter, similar engine power, though the Stallion has three motors instead of two and a much longer range.”

  “We hoped you might be able to track down registration for either of the models within range of the Frasier’s farm,” I said before taking my first bite of the burger. It wasn't as good as McRory’s, but pretty damn good.

  Bill laughed. “Good thinking. Yeah, I have access to those records. There can’t be more than a few of either of those helos around, at least with civilian ownership.”

  “We’ll follow your lead on that one,” Keep said. “You’re the expert.”

  “Good idea. Let me just finish my snack and we can go back to my office to run the search.”

  “Snack?” I said, looking at his full plate.

  He laughed again. “I’m just screwing with you.” He paused. “No, I’m not. I’ll have another burger or two later.” He resumed his guffaw.

  It didn’t take long for Bill to finish his food, his big mouth engulfing the burgers and dogs in the same time it took me to eat my single patty. Keep found a pile of fries in the interim and dug into them like an excavator, dropping a stack onto his plate and smothering them in ketchup and salt.

  “That looks like a heart attack waiting to happen,” I said.

  “Au contraire,” Keep replied. “This is a true culinary masterpiece.”

  I wasn’t sure how I felt that he'd used the same description for the fries I had for my burger. Was he rubbing off on me? Or was it the other way around?

  Sheri and Nick rejoined us by the time we finished our meals. Nick looked downtrodden, Sheri sad but less tense. She sat next to Mom while Nick came over to us.

  “Hey guys,” he said.

  “Are you okay?” Bill asked, noticing his red eyes and strained expression.

  Nick looked my way. “Your sister dumped me. She said I was weak. Do I look weak to you?”

  “Muscles aren’t everything, kid,” Keep said.

  “Sorry, Nick,” I replied. “Maybe once things settle down you can win her back. Show her you’re emotionally and mentally strong, too. Falling apart now won’t help your case.”

  He bit his lower lip and nodded. “Yeah, you’re right.” He glanced over at her. “If I care, I probably shouldn’t give up too easily.”

  “Maybe not, but don’t be a creepy stalker about it.”

  “I won’t. I saw what you did inside the factory. I don’t want to get on your bad side, man.”

  “We were just heading up to my office,” Bill said. “Why don’t you tag along.”

  “Okay.”

  The four of us returned to Bill’s office. He settled in behind the iMac while Keep and I leaned over his shoulder .

  “What are you looking for?” Nick asked.

  “Ownership records for either an S-61 Skycrane or CH-53 Super Stallion,” I explained. “Helicopters.”

  “Oh, cool. How come?”

  “With any luck, it’ll lead us to the people who abducted you. They still have something that belongs to me, and I want it back.”

  “Can I help with that?”

  “I’m not sure that’s a good idea.”

  “You just said I needed to show Sheri that I’m strong.”

  I looked up at him. “That doesn’t mean rushing headlong into danger. I was kind of forced into it.” I glared at Keep across Bill’s back. “I’d still rather spend my last few months bopping my way across the galaxy and having fun instead of dealing with all this .”

  “What do you mean?” Keep said, looking back at me. “You aren’t having fun?”

  I gave his attempt at humor a closed-mouth laugh. “The part where Sedaya was choking me with a razor-edged silk scarf was kind of fun,” I replied sarcastically. “And the part where they got on the ship and were trying to kill us. We kind of had a rerun of that on Eviscerator. Just a blast, for sure. Oh, and kidnapping my mother and sister, that was just awesome. And—”

  “Okay, kid,” Keep said. “We get it. You’ve had a bit of a rough patch.”

  “A rough patch?”

  “But look at what you’ve gained. Friends, a starship, an adventure. A place as my student, learning to use long lost tech. Think ahead a little bit. If we manage to put a stop to all of this garbage, it’ll be smooth sailing for you.”

  “Right into my grave,” I said.

  “You aren’t dead until you’ve breathed your last.”

  “Point being,” I said, looking back at Nick. “You don’t need to go that far. Just be her protector, like you would if she were your sister.”

  “Uh, I don’t want to think about her like she was my sister.”

  “I might prefer that.”

  He smiled. “I hear what you’re saying, Ben. Thank you for being cool about things. You could have just taken her side and told me to screw off.”

  “You seem like a nice guy.”

  Bill coughed loudly to get our attention. “It looks like there are six helos that match our search and are within the flight radius. Two of them aren’t up to date on their inspections, which means they don’t have clearance to fly.”

  “We can’t rule them out,” Keep said. “One of them could have been stolen and flown illegally.”

  “But we can move them to the back of the line. That leaves four more. One’s a private charter for heavyweight air transport, that seems promising. Another—”

  “What about that one?” I asked, pointing to one of the choppers listed on the screen. “Registered to Exotic Mining Group.”

  Keep leaned in. “Coincidence? I think not. Can you get more info about the registration?”

  “Sure can,” Bill said, clicking on the chopper’s identification. “Purchased by EMG six years ago from Navy surplus. Looks like they’ve added about four hundred hours to her since then.”

  “Does Exotic Mining Group have a website?” I asked.

  “Let’s find out,” Bill asked, searching for the company. “Yup.” He clicked on the link.

  Their web site was nothing special. A single pager filled with mining clip art and jargon. The bottom of the page had a short list of the company’s leadership team. The CEO was a silver-haired man named Alonzo Dellacqua. The Chief People Officer, a younger woman with an attractive but stern face. Colette Dellacqua. She was the only female on the leadership team.

  “We should have brought Kyrie up with us,” I said. “She saw the woman in the barn.”

  “Do you think it was her?” Keep asked.

  “That would be an easy way to find out.”

  “I can think of another way,” Keep said, taking out his phone. He dialed the contact number on the bottom of the website. “Hi, my name is John Schmidt. I’m returning a call from Miss Colette Dellacqua. Can you put me through? Sure, I’ll hold.” He passed the phone to me. “This should be interesting.”

  The phone rang through to voicemail.

  “You’ve reached the desk of Colette Dellacqua,” a perky, familiar voice said. “I’m not available at the moment, so please leave your name, number, and the reason you’re calling and I’ll get back to you as soon as I can.”

  I disconnected the call without leaving a message.

  “Well?” Keep said.

  “That’s her. We found them.”

  CHAPTER 32

  “Finding the bad guys was too easy,” I said. “How could it be this easy?”

  “You call this easy, kid?” Keep replied. “The only reason we had anything to go on is because Kyrie managed to hide in the barn. Without her, we would have had nothing. Nada. Zilch. Zero. Badabing badaboom. She saved our bacon, and you had the bright idea to use what she heard to our advantage. Just because something doesn’t take a lot of time doesn’t make it easy. How long were you inside the plant at the junkyard? Five minutes? Ten?”

  “I get your point,” I said. “It just seems like they should have known we would find them.”

  “Why would they think that when they didn’t know anyone had heard the chopper? Do you think the fact that they tied George and Gloria up in the basement was an accident? Because I don’t. We won this one. Don’t wonder how or why; just enjoy it.”

  “I’m with Avelus,” Bill agreed. “You outsmarted them and gained an advantage. Don’t waste it.”