“It’s not really a choice, is it? I’m not leaving without Matt. But how do you know I won’t betray you, too?”

  Succaath turned his hand over, a small ball of ooze forming in his palm. He held it out to me. “Take this.”

  “I’d rather not,” I replied.

  “This small collection of protostem will allow me to keep track of your whereabouts. To ensure you hold up your end of the bargain.”

  “I could just toss it out of an airlock the first chance I get.”

  “And I would know if you left it behind. My influence on Earth remains. Your family is safe because I will it to be so.”

  “Is that a threat?”

  “It’s a warning. I’m sending you to deal with Sedaya. If you betray me, I will deal with you myself.”

  The way he said it sent a fresh chill down my spine. I reached out and took the ball of goop. At first moist and squishy in my hand, it hardened into a dark stone. “I have a couple of these already. I picked one of them off Alonzo Dellacqua.”

  “You kept the collator?”

  “Yeah. Keep figured out how to use them, but we didn’t really want to give you a call.”

  “You can use this collator to connect with that one, if the need arises. Or if you need to contact me.”

  “Cool,” I said, shoving the collator into my pocket. “Should I expect you to ping me to check on my progress?”

  “No.”

  “One other question. What if I fail? What if Sedaya kills me?”

  “My retribution for your failure would be minor compared to whatever Sedaya might do. But I do suggest that you don’t fail. Or die in the process.”

  I exhaled sharply, trying to quell the discomfort that statement caused. “Right. So…now what?”

  “What do you mean? Our bargain is struck. You’re free to go. Both of you.”

  The portal on the side of the ship slid open. With the protostem diverted, I was able to see outside. I glanced at the exit and back at the simulacrum. “That’s it? We’re just free to go? We’re still stuck on this planet. And Matt’s still a contestant on Kill Spree. Not to mention the other members of my crew.”

  “That is none of my concern.”

  “You said that you manipulated Sanguine into choosing this planet. You can’t convince them to pick us up?”

  “They had a desire to locate a suitable planet. They have no desire to descend to the surface while more than a single contestant remains. That is how this twisted human spectacle functions.”

  “Well, maybe you could at least give us an invisible bodyguard or something then?”

  “No.”

  “Right.” I put my hand on Matt’s shoulder. “Thanks for nothing, Suckass. The next time I see you, I’ll have Sedaya all wrapped up with a nice big red bow.”

  “You’d better.”

  The simulacrum began breaking down, the ooze losing its form until it returned to oily tentacles that retreated into the rest of the protostem lining the spaceship. “Just keep your hand on my shoulder," I told Matt, putting his hand there and leading him out through the open portal onto the grass. "It’s a bit of a walk back to the others.”

  But instead of waiting for me to walk, he turned me until I faced him, looking toward me with permanently dilated eyes. “Ben, I’m sorry.”

  “For what?” I asked.

  “For putting you in that position. I would have argued against making a deal with that thing, but I knew you wouldn’t listen.”

  “Then there’s nothing to be sorry for. I would make the same decision every time. And I know you would do the same for me.”

  “Yeah, I would,” he agreed.

  “So don’t worry about it. We’ll make it right.”

  He squeezed my shoulder. “I’m really happy to see you, Ben. Even if I can't see you," he said, jerking me into his arms for the bro hug. He slapped me on the back and then drew back, returning his hand to my shoulder. "I can’t tell you how glad I am that you’re still alive. I felt like I was going insane, not knowing what happened to you.” He paused. “You want to tell me what did happen?”

  “We can talk about it on our way back to the others."

  “Do you have an idea on how to escape?”

  “No, but I know someone who might. I’m sorry too, by the way.”

  “What are you sorry for?”

  “You know the Mustang?”

  A pained expression crossed his face. “Yeah,” he said tentatively.

  “Well, I’m kind of glad you can’t see it right now.”

  “That bad, huh?”

  “Worse. It's totaled.”

  He pouted for a second before squeezing my shoulder again. “The Wickmobile dead, my best friend alive. I’ll make that trade every time.”

  I patted his hand and started back toward the river, tapping my comm badge. “Ixy, do you copy?”

  “Heresss,” she replied.

  “Who is that?” Matt asked.

  “New crew member. Don’t get freaked out when you meet her. She’s a xixitl.”

  “What’s that?”

  “A giant tarantula.”

  “What?” Matt said, losing his grip on my shoulder as he froze in place.

  “Ixy, I have Matt. Can you meet us at the river?”

  “Yesss,” she answered, clacking softly in amusement from Matt’s reaction.

  “Ben out.” I disconnected the link and turned back to him. “I know you have a thing about spiders, but—”

  “Like you have a thing about clowns. I hate them.”

  “Ixy’s not actually a spider, she just looks, I don’t know, ninety percent like a spider. But she’s an intelligent alien life form. And please keep in mind I owe her my life, several times over. Besides, at this point, you can’t see her.”

  “Maybe not, but you just told me what she looks like, and that’s creepy as hell. But since she saved your life…I'll try to see…think of her in a different light.”

  “She’s awesome. Seriously. Once you get to know her, you won’t hate spiders anymore. I can’t say the same thing about clowns.”

  “Maybe you can get me new eyes that make every freaky alien look like Margot Robbie.”

  “I doubt it, but you never know.” I took his hand and guided it back to my shoulder. “I'm just glad I found you."

  “Me, too.”

  We started walking again. I glanced back at the Relyeh pod before it vanished from sight. I knew I had just made a deal with the devil. One with consequences I was pretty sure I didn’t yet fully understand. But it had gotten Matt back in almost one piece, and that made it totally worthwhile.

  I just needed to figure out how not to get burned by this new and surely deadly alliance.

  CHAPTER 38

  Ixitat was waiting for us when we reached the river. I used enhance to carry Matt on my back as I waded through the water to meet her and make introductions. Despite what Matt had said earlier, he didn’t completely freak out when Ixitat greeted him, though I was sure his inability to see her had something to do with that.

  Succaath hadn’t promised us safe passage back through the tunnel. He had made it clear the challenge of reaching his pod was part of testing my might. With that in mind, I decided not to return the way we had come. Instead, we followed the river. If Emerald were here, she probably could have built us a boat in ten minutes or less. Matt might have been able to come up with something if he could see. I wasn’t that industrious.

  Now that we weren’t being attacked by alien demons or convicted killers, the planet was actually kind of beautiful. As we traced the river, the lush green vegetation gave way to a wider variety of flowering plants in a multitude of shapes, colors, and sizes. We crossed paths with an equally diverse assortment of critters, from weasel-like rodents that bore a resemblance to Shaq to colorful and apparently predatory birds that swooped down to pluck amphibians out of the water. For all the hell we’d been through and all the trouble still to come, it was a nice interlude, a breather that finally allowed me to soak in the better side of an alien world, in a galaxy far, far away.

  At the same time, it sucked because Matt couldn’t enjoy it with me. He was handling his blindness like a boss, remaining calm and complaint-free, keeping his hand on my shoulder and following with confidence and trust that I wouldn’t trip him up. Ixitat stayed a short distance ahead of us, occasionally diverting from the river to climb a tree and plan our route.

  I spent the bulk of the first couple of hours telling Matt about everything I had gone through from the moment he’d been captured until now. He didn’t ask a lot of questions or make too many comments until I got to the part where Head Case changed size. He went on a bit about the possibilities related to being able to shrink to the size of a flea, and we shared a few good laughs that broke some of the tension that had formed around the destruction which preceded that part of the tale.

  After a while we fell into a comfortable silence. Not long after, my initial enjoyment of the landscape faded, my thoughts turning serious and dark, not only the conversation with Succaath replaying in my mind, but the entire scene repeating, allowing me to take in different aspects each time. The nature of the pod and the protostem for one. The way it was able to take on different forms. In one, it floated in the atmosphere, absorbing all light. In another, it moved like a living, breathing mass. And then it turned hard as stone, like the shell of the spacecraft. It had other properties too. Succaath was able to communicate through it, in real time across immense distances. How did that work?

  I wondered about the gorathi as well. They weren’t native to the planet. Succaath had implied they had been here for a long time, that another of his kind had delivered them and that he had some measure of control over their actions. Not only that, but similar creatures lived on Gia’s World as well. Combining Succaath’s story with Veneel’s description of the creatures as mythological beings, I couldn’t help wondering where Niflin legend and Relyeh history intersected. Obviously, the race had been to this part of the universe long before humans. But Succaath had also called his kind conquerors who claimed the planets they visited. So where had they gone that they had left what amounted to their foot-soldiers behind? What had chased them away? The other aliens he had spoken about? The Axon? But then, where had they gone?

  I knew it wasn’t all that important right now. Even though the Relyeh had been here once already, they’d also been gone for a long time. Like Succaath had reminded me, Sedaya was the more imminent threat. At first, it seemed unbelievable to me that Succaath had basically given the duke the keys to the Hegemony in the form of sigiltech. But the more I thought about it, the more I realized how desperate the Sacred of the Relyeh must be. He had made his own deal with a devil to get what he wanted. And he had gotten burned.

  When you had all the time in the universe, the damage was a minor scalding, not a first degree thrashing. And since he had no loyalty to humankind, he also had no problem with his miscalculation causing havoc in the Spiral. It didn’t matter to him how many people died or how much more dangerous the Hegemony might become with sigiltech back in play. All he cared about was making Sedaya pay for his betrayal.

  In that sense, we wanted the same thing.

  First, I needed to get Team Hondo safely off the planet. To do that, unfortunately, we needed Coil.

  “Quasar, do you copy?” I said after tapping on my comm badge. I’d been trying to reach her since we reached the approximate halfway point between the dam and the city, with no luck so far. I knew the comms didn’t have a huge range, but I was starting to worry something had happened to the rest of the team. “Quasar, come in.”

  “Ben, this is Quasar,” her reply came back, broken up slightly by interference. “Can you hear me?”

  “Zar,” I replied. “I hear you. Are you all okay?”

  “Yes, still hiding out in the factory, safe and sound. No new creepies since you left. We just moved closer to the entrance, trying to get more range from the badge. I was hoping I would hear from you soon. Did you find Matt?”

  “I’m here,” Matt said. “A little disadvantaged, but I’ve still got plenty of fight left.”

  “You’re blind, aren’t you?” she replied. “We didn’t realize it right away, but we were afraid you might be.”

  “Yeah, I am,” Matt admitted. “But Ben told me there's technology to fix that here.”

  “Bionics. If we can get you to a modder, they can fix you up good as new.”

  “I’m glad to have your confirmation of that. Not that I didn’t believe him, but you know the Spiral better than he does.”

  “We’re on our way to you,” I said. “Taking the overland route. We should be back in the industrial zone in another three or four hours.”

  “Is there anything we should do in the meantime?” Quasar asked.

  “No, just stay there and wait for us.”

  “Copy that. Where did you find Matt?”

  “That’s a story for later. The important thing is that I found him.” He squeezed my shoulder in appreciation of the comment.

  “Ben, you should know. Emerald left.”

  “She left?” I said, not really that surprised.

  “Yes. She said waiting around was boring and she’d rather be gunned down than sit around in the dark. I think she decided to go after Coil.”

  “Great,” I replied, sighing in frustration.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “We need Coil alive. He said he had a plan to get Sanguine to drop their assault team to the surface, and we still need to get out of here.”

  “Boss,” Druck said. “You know you can’t trust that guy. He tried to kill you once already. Shit, he tried to use Shaq to do it.”

  “Asshole,” Shaq buzzed.

  “I know. We can take him prisoner if needed, but I want to know what his plan is.”

  “Anyway, Emerald said it was all a line to get people to join him, remember?” Druck added.

  “I remember. When I talked to him, he seemed like he really did have an idea. Since none of us do, he’s our next best option. If Emerald doesn’t kill him and ruin it all.”

  “It’s more likely she’ll get herself killed. To be honest, I have no problem with that.”

  “I know you don’t like her, but—”

  “But nothing, Boss. She’s nuts. A wild card. In my experience, soldiers like that cause more problems than they solve.”

  “Maybe you’re right. Hang tight, we should be there before sundown.”

  “Copy that.”

  I tapped on the comm badge, walking in silence for a few more minutes before lifting my phone out of my pocket. I wasn’t surprised to see I didn’t have a hypernet connection. Putting it away, I pulled the protostem collator out of a second pocket, wondering if I should use it. I stared at it in the palm of my hand before closing my fist around it, visualizing the collator Keep had taken from Dellacqua’s corpse and pushing chaos energy into it.

  The stone warmed up in my hand, glowing slightly as energy soaked into it. At first, I thought my vision was blurring until I realized the collator was somehow projecting the area where it was located on the landscape immediately surrounding me, and then creating a ghostly view of Keep’s quarters centered on his nightstand. He wasn’t in the room. His bed was made, his pork pie hat and coat rested at the foot. I didn’t know where he was, and I had no way to call out to him from the alien device.

  Or did I?

  “Levi, can you hear me?” I said.

  “Levi?” Matt asked, unable to see what I was doing. “What are you talking about?”

  “I can hear you, Benjamin,” Head Case’s computer answered. “How may I be of service?”

  “Are we back on Head Case?” Matt asked. “Did we transit?”

  “No. I’m using the collator. It’s like we’re in Keep’s quarters with one of them and here at the same time. Levi, activate the emergency alert in Cabin Three-four.”

  “Confirmed.”

  A shrill tone surrounded us, louder than I ‘d realized. Loud enough to alert all of the killers left of the planet to our location. “Levi,” I snapped in a sudden panic. “Shut it down. Now.”

  “Confirmed.” The tone stopped immediately.

  “That was stupid,” I said as I opened my hand and stopped the flow of chaos energy to the collator.

  Ixitat came rushing back, lowered into an attack position. “Bensss?”

  “It’s okay,” I said. “It’s my fault. I was trying to get Keep’s attention.”

  “Confusesss,” she said.

  “Don’t worry about it. We’re fine.” I dropped the collator back into my pocket. We kept walking, still using the river as a guide. Thoughts turning inward again, one wrinkle in particular overrode the rest.

  The last time I had seen Dellacqua’s collator, it was in the armory for safekeeping. So what was it doing in Keep’s quarters?

  CHAPTER 39

  It was early evening when Ixitat, Matt, and I reached the factory. As soon as we pushed through a pair of large shrubs, their branches obscuring the building, Shaq launched himself to Matt’s shoulder. Purring loudly, he rubbed his head against Matt’s neck.

  “Shaq,” Matt said, smiling and reaching up to pet him. “I’m so glad you’re safe.”

  “You too,” Shaq buzzed.

  “Matt,” Quasar said, approaching from further back with Druck. She put a hand on his other shoulder before embracing him. “I missed you.”

  “I missed you too,” he replied. “All of you.”

  “Hey, Matt,” Druck said once Quasar backed up. He put his hand on Matt’s and they went from a handshake directly into a man-hug. “Nice to see you alive, buddy.”

  “Nice to be alive,” Matt said. “For both of us.”

  “Emerald never came back?” I asked.

  “I’m sure you would know it if she had," Zar answered.

  "She’s got a thing for Ben,” Druck explained to Matt. "I can’t begin to guess why.” He laughed and clapped me on the shoulder. “Just kidding, Boss.”