Shall zoomed toward it, prepared to kill anything that tried to interfere with the mission.

  Ashok stood in the hangar, watching as several hundred former prisoners crowded forward to board the transport. Callie strolled toward him, her suit smeared with blood. “Captain,” he said, “you look terrible.”

  “Fortunately, I feel wonderful.”

  “You didn’t bring the director?”

  “She didn’t survive our encounter,” Callie said. “The strain was just too much for her shriveled little heart.”

  “Ah. Shall looted her data anyway. She was a copious note-taker. I doubt there was much inside her head that isn’t in her files.” Ashok watched the last of the prisoners mount the ramp and then waved to Serafina, who’d done most of the herding, as she boarded too. “We just saved all these people, Callie. Usually when we save people it’s a lot more remote and in the abstract, like they’re way off on a planet and we’re way off in space. This time we saved these actual people right here.”

  “They’re not saved yet. There are still two scourge-ships about to realize nobody’s actually bombarding the research station, and if they come back before that flying bathtub the resistance brought gets away…”

  Ashok shook his head. “The resistance is bombarding the planet, though. The pilot of the transport ship told me, Wilfred decided the plan could benefit from a little verisimilitude, so they took one of their captured scourge-ships over there to make it look plausible. Not an actual bombardment – there are human prisoners down there on that research station – but they dropped some bombs in the general area, and as soon as the scourge-ships came around the curve of the planet, the good guys took off and the bad guys gave chase.”

  “I wish they’d mentioned that to me,” Callie said. “It would have relieved some of my anxiety. Though I suppose worry sharpens the mind.”

  “I’m just glad someone else is being pursued by angry aliens this time.” Kaustikos floated over, and Ashok waved to him cheerfully, on the basis that it didn’t cost anything to be nice, even to him.

  “I’m sure you’ll be angrily pursued again in the future,” Callie said. “In fact, I’d say it’s all but inevitable.”

  “What happens next?” Ashok said, as the transport ship pulled away from the station.

  “This raid was the proof of concept,” Callie said. “So, next up: we do the concept.”

  CHAPTER 19

  Elena snuggled up against Callie. This wasn’t the first time they’d gone to bed together since they got to the Vanir system, but it was the first time they hadn’t simply fallen into exhausted, subsistence-level sleep. Callie had that faraway look, the one that said she was calculating angles and figuring percentages, and Elena respected that… but she also wanted Callie to see her, so she gently tipped Callie’s face toward her and kissed her on the lips. Callie’s return kiss was perfunctory at first, but she could never resist Elena for long, and soon she returned it with real heat.

  Elena pulled away and smiled, tracing her fingertip along Callie’s lower lip. “There you are. Nice to see you. Nice to be seen.”

  Callie laughed. “I have been pretty distracted, haven’t I?”

  “You’re just being the master strategist. I get it. But we have a minute to take a breath, so I want to make sure you do take one.”

  “I would, if you didn’t keep taking my breath away.”

  “Stop it, or I’ll start expecting romance from you.”

  “That’s true. I’d hate to set you up for disappointment.”

  The White Raven was in orbit around Niflheim, having shepherded the transport ship to safety. Callie had made her pitch, and now the leaders of the resistance were down there arguing about her idea amongst themselves. “Do you think we can win?” Elena said.

  “If I didn’t think we could win, I wouldn’t suggest we try – I’d get Ashok to wire the bridge generator into their big transport ship and take as many people to safety as we could instead. That said, possible doesn’t mean definite. This is a whole different order of fight than the ones we’ve taken on in the past. Destroying that first Axiom station we found, ambushing truth-teller cells, tricking pirates, even destroying the Dream – those were battles. This is a lot more like an actual war.”

  “War’s just a series of battles though, right?”

  “To some extent, but you can win every battle but the last one and still lose. I wish I knew what Shaper and the rest of the Exalted actually want. I don’t believe they’re just doing medical experiments for their own enjoyment. I want to slip away and check out the coordinates the Benefactor gave us – as far as I can tell, they don’t correspond to any of the facilities the resistance knows about, which could mean one of them is the seat of the secret project Metcalf muttered about. But.”

  “You’re helping to lead a revolution right now.”

  “Apparently.”

  “Our mission isn’t really to fight the Axiom,” Elena said. “It’s to protect people. We’ve focused on the Axiom because they’re the biggest existential threat to intelligent life that we know about. These people, here and now, need our help. We’re doing the right thing.”

  “I know. I’m just impatient. If the resistance will back my plan, and it works the way I hope, we would be the ones in a position of power in this system, and the Exalted will be the scrappy underdogs.”

  “I’m sure the rebels will back you,” Elena said. “In the meantime… can I distract you?”

  “You’ve always been able to before,” Callie said.

  “We were still debating the merits of your idea when we got a message from the Opener of the Way,” Wilfred said.

  Callie was back on Niflheim, still in the little supply depot’s makeshift conference room, but this time there were faces on the screens, and they belonged to other leaders of the resistance: Nadia, dark and serious and middle-aged, was the woman Callie had first talked to from orbit; Theos wore smoked goggles and a big scarf wrapped around their face and spoke through a voice modulator, which struck Callie as an overabundance of caution; and Lara was young and stringy and twitchy but also one of the few prisoners who’d ever escaped an Exalted medical facility on her own, stealing a shuttle and breaking her own collar.

  “The who of the what? These Exalted like their fancy names, don’t they?”

  “The Opener is one of the ruling triumvirate,” Nadia explained. “The head of research. In terms of unofficial pecking order she might be a notch below the Shaper of Destiny in surgery, but it’s a small notch. She sent a message this morning, using one of our encrypted channels, and hiding the video in other data – that’s a technique we use to send secret messages, and there are a lot of people very upset that the Opener knew about it.”

  That explained why this was the first Callie was hearing about a message. Janice was good at keeping track of ambient chatter, but she couldn’t catch all the super spy shit. “So what does the Opener have to say?”

  The screen with Theos on it went black and was replaced by an image of an orange-skinned Exalted reclining on cushions and wearing voluminous purple robes; the effect was a bit like looking at a rotten grape with three eyes of various sizes on top. “Greetings, brave warriors.” Her voice was all purr and oil. “I have been very impressed by your efforts recently – all of the Exalted have. The attack on the shipyard was masterly, and the raid on the orbital holding facility… well, none of us thought you had it in you. We are humbled by your resilience and resourcefulness. We knew humans were an impressive species. That’s why we invited you to join our experiments for the betterment of all intelligent life in the galaxy in the first place – we saw your potential. We’re saddened, of course, that you choose to exercise that potential in opposition to us instead of in association, but we understand your viewpoint. The quest for what you call freedom is misguided, but comprehensible.”

  The Opener stirred, rearranging her pseudopods. “We believe your sudden burst of activity is related to the arrival of a self-proclaimed diplomat named Kalea Machedo.” The view zoomed in closer, those three eyes filling the screen, and her voice became husky and intense. “She is a troublemaker. An outside agitator, from a far-away system that has nothing to do with our lives here in Vanir. We have had peace for decades, have we not? Those humans who prove themselves intelligent and capable enough to escape or evade the Exalted are permitted to live in peace on Niflheim – a planet we have entirely ceded to you! We haven’t bombarded, invaded, released a customized plague, or used any of the planet-destroying weapons we most assuredly possess. We like the resistance. We like having you, the fittest humans, off on your own, breeding more very fit humans. We let Vanaheim run more-or-less wild for centuries, just to see what the forces of natural selection wrought, in case some of the results could be useful for us later. I can assure you, we would allow the same latitude to those of you on Niflheim. But.”

  The camera pulled back, and the Opener raised one tentacle, like a teacher raising a warning finger. “This Machedo has disrupted things to an unacceptable degree. Worse, she promises further disruption – she claims our system is soon to be visited by more of her ilk.”

  “Ilk,” Callie said. “I didn’t know I even had an ilk.”

  “We would like very much to question Machedo, to determine the truth of these assertions. We would also like her to stop destroying our facilities. The occasional raid, we can accept – we know you humans like to keep busy. But we can’t allow this level of disruption. Thus, I have a proposal. Give us Kalea Machedo. We aren’t unreasonable. You can keep the rest of her crew. Send her in a landing ship to the research center on Vanaheim, and we’ll say no more about it.” The Opener paused. “If you don’t… Threats are so vulgar, but I feel I must be explicit. You know how much we value our experimental subjects here, but we are willing to sacrifice them if you fail to hand over Machedo before the end of the next standard day.”

  The camera panned, and pulled back, to reveal a vast glass tank – a terrarium the size of a room. Things writhed inside it, sinuous white shapes among the greenery and stones. “Are those snakes?” Callie leaned forward to look closer.

  “Those are Jörmungandr-worms,” Nadia said grimly. “They grow inside host animals until they’re about two meters long, and, after that, they’re viable outside the body, and they chew their way out to go in search of new hosts to lay their eggs in.” The camera zoomed in, revealing at least a dozen of the serpents: they were dead white, bodies segmented, and when one of their heads reared up and faced the camera, it was a nightmare hole full of triangular teeth and flexing hooked mandibles. “They fasten on with the teeth, and those hooks are ovipositors. They flood the host with tiny worms, and those worms fight each other until only one remains, and that one grows to maturity.”

  The camera panned up… and revealed three humans, bound and dangling upside-down over the tank, eyes wide with terror. One of the Jörmungandr-worms leapt up, and got close enough to brush the hair dangling from one prisoner’s head. The camera moved back to the Opener. “It’s all very dramatic, I know, but our research indicates that humans respond positively to such demonstrations, with a greater rate of return than a mere verbal explanation of the situation would provide. Turn over Machedo before our deadline, or we’ll begin feeding prisoners to the worms at the rate of… oh, let’s say one per minute. Every hour we’ll round up the infected and put them on a vessel and drop them on Niflheim near your known bases. You can welcome them, knowing what will happen in those cramped tunnels you call home when the worms mature, or you can slaughter your fellows within sight of the freedom they’ve dreamed about. In honor of Captain Machedo, we’ll start with the troublemakers among our experimental stock, but once we run out of those, we’ll move on to a random selection. I await your decision. I’m sure you’ll do the right thing.” The screen went black.

  “Huh,” Callie said. “How much time do we have, before her deadline?”

  “Just enough to get you from here to Vanaheim,” Wilfred said. “But none of us are suggesting that. We don’t have anti-parasitics on hand, but if we can organize a raid on one of the Exalted supply depots, we might be able to get the components necessary to make some… assuming those are standard Jörmungandr-worms and not some specially engineered variety, but we’ll be able to tell pretty quickly–”

  “Nah,” Callie said. “Too much trouble. Just hand me over.”

  Wilfred stared at her. “Captain Machedo, they won’t even kill you, they’ll torture you. The Opener is head of research, and the research division is the worst of the Exalted. The surgical division is horrifying, but they’re practical and professional, in a way. In research they just… try things, to see what happens. You don’t want to be in their hands.”

  “You let me worry about that. I’ll even take care of delivering myself, so none of your people are at risk during the handover. I just need to pop up to my ship first.” She paused. “It’s important for the Exalted to think you had to detain me by force, though. Send a reply saying you’ve subdued me and I’m on my way.”

  “Do you have a plan?” Wilfred said.

  “Let’s say I’ve got an inkling,” Callie replied.

  “I like this plan,” Ashok said.

  “This does not qualify as a plan!” Elena shouted. “It’s at best a loose set of improvisational guidelines!”

  “I have to admit, I’m not thrilled to hear Ashok likes it. Makes me reconsider the whole thing, honestly. Guess it’s too late for that though.” Callie was seated in the canoe, almost ready to be rendered unto the Opener. She was dressed in a scratchy gray jumpsuit that said ‘Niflheim Mining’ on the back in badly kerned letters. Her arms were bound against her sides with wire, more wire bound her legs, and her wrists were fastened together in front of her with manacles. Ashok was fiddling with the manacles, doing something with his fine manipulators, and Elena was glaring at them both. Callie didn’t like being tied up – even recreationally, she was usually the one who did the tying – and the wires cut into her uncomfortably, but this needed to look good.

  “I wish you weren’t going alone. I know you’re good at what you do, and I believe in you, but even you can be caught by surprise. You won’t even have your weapons or your stealth suit.”

  “Believe me, I’d send Ashok instead if I could, and I’d go in there wearing an armored exoskeleton if I could get away with it. Unfortunately, I’m the only one they invited. I think I’ll be okay. They’re just scientists.”

  “A little less contempt when you say ‘scientist’ please,” Elena said. “I’m a scientist.”

  “You’re wonderful. I could also take you in a fight. That’s just a fact. A science fact. You can beat me in a medical diagnosis competition or an anatomy-naming quiz any day of the week, but I’ve got the edge in punching. Our deadline is coming up fast. Is everything ready, Ashok?”

  “Yes, all prepped.” He sighed. “Take good care of my babies.”

  “I will not take care of them, even a little bit. They’d better take good care of me.”

  Elena kissed her. “Come back to me.”

  “I will. And you know what to do if I don’t.”

  “We’re not going to do that, though,” Elena said. “We’d mount a rescue mission instead. Don’t make that face. I’d be the ranking officer, and you know what I’d decide. I’d go down there, personally, toting some sort of… laser rifle or whatever… and show you how well a scientist can fight. Probably not very well. I’d almost certainly get killed, so let that be your motivation to come back to me.”

  “Yes, Doctor Oh. Another kiss.”

  That one went on long enough for even Ashok to cough and shuffle his feet in embarrassment. “All right,” Callie said at last. “Send me to my doom.”

  CHAPTER 20

  The canoe descended bumpily through Vanaheim’s atmosphere. Callie had a pretty good view of the screens from her position tied to a seat, and it really was a gorgeous planet. Jungles, rivers, snow-capped mountains, jewel-colored lakes – no wonder colonists had been excited about emigrating here. The planet looked like an artist’s renditions of primeval Earth, only it was real, and the surveys had revealed only small fauna so there weren’t even anacondas or tigers or crocodiles to worry about. (There was some speculation about why nothing bigger had developed, but ‘because the planet is an alien test lab developing under specific conditions’ was not an explanation that occurred to anyone.) The Jörmungandr-worms hadn’t shown up on the scans, because before humans arrived the available hosts were so small the worms could only grow a few centimeters long before bursting out. That must have been a pretty unpleasant day, the first time one of those two-meter monsters tore out of somebody’s guts.

  Wouldn’t be Eden without a serpent, she thought.

  The visible part of the research facility was a small, starfish-shaped structure nestled in a valley, surrounded by waterfalls and gardens and recreational lakes, and Callie watched it grow larger in the viewscreen. According to Wilfred, the bulk of the facility was underground, and all that natural beauty didn’t provide any pleasure to the research subjects in their windowless subterranean holding pens. The researchers tested plagues down there – in theory they were attempting to cure virulent diseases, but they also created new plagues, for their own mysterious purposes – as well as cross-species chimerization, mind control, surgical adaptations for survival in different environments (extreme heat and cold, hard vacuum, toxic atmosphere, and so on), ways to dull and enhance pain, and any other subject that pleased the Opener’s whims. The Exalted had tens of thousands of research subjects, after all, so if the experiments were failures or dead ends, what did it matter? Humans were plentiful. Just leave them alone for a while and they’d make more of themselves.