“Not really,” Cassilde said. She looked at Dai. “What’s the chance it’s one of us?”

  “Somebody running quiet out to their claim?” Dai shrugged. “It could be. Like I said, we’re in sensor range of a couple of other sites.”

  “I don’t think it’s a salvor,” Ashe said.

  “If you know anything,” Cassilde said, “say it now.”

  There was a little silence. “There were rumors before we left. Nothing solid.”

  “Damn it, Ashe,” Dai said.

  “It was talk,” Ashe said. “The usual chitchat, somebody heard somebody say somebody else might have mentioned a smash-and-grab. Nothing we all haven’t heard a thousand times. But, yes, it’s possible that somebody else saw what I saw in that section. Not likely, I admit. But possible.”

  “There are always rumors,” Cassilde said, as much to herself as to the others. She shook herself and looked at Dai. “Any idea where they went?”

  He reached across the screen to shape a wedge of light, the wide end pointing away from their position. “That’s what I make from the last readings.”

  The ghost ship was headed away before it disappeared. Probably another salvor, Cassilde decided, taking the same precautions they were. “All right,” she said. “Bring us back to low power, and let’s get on this. The sooner we’re on our claim, the better.”

  * * *

  Dai brought Carabosse down neatly against the side of the chunk of wreckage that was their claim, latching on with the landing grapples, then setting the pitons that would hold the ship firmly to the section’s outer shell. Scans revealed the hull and interior bulkheads to be in surprisingly good condition, as though the palace had broken up along the faces of its strongest points. Or maybe it had been designed to fail that way, Cassilde thought, as she supervised the mapping daemon from the control room while the others adjusted the fields that would hold an atmosphere and transmit power to their equipment. She’d seen similar patterns before, on other wrecks, and it was a logical way to build a space habitat—though logic didn’t always have much to do with the Ancestors.

  It took a full twelve hours to generate a breathable atmosphere, and she used the time to smooth out the artificial gravity and get a decent night’s sleep before turning Ashe loose on the point they’d marked as their best entrance. He set the portable airlock with his usual quick skill, and eased his way through the layers of rock and metal, working around nests of BLUE that would pay most of their expenses for the job once they had time to recover them. Cassilde marked their locations, and once the shell was breached, loosed a swarm of smaller daemons to chart the interior volume. The result was rough, but she displayed it in Central with a certain satisfaction.

  Ashe fiddled with his tablets, flattening the map to a rough schematic, then expanding it to the three-dimensional model, then zooming in on image fragments as though he could identify specific objects in the daemons’ feed.

  “The resolution’s not good enough for that,” Dai said. He’d done the cooking, since his job was suspended for the moment, and slid the bowls of rice and beans onto the table. Cassilde took hers without enthusiasm. Dai was in fact a decent cook, but she had no appetite, a sure sign that she was working up to another attack of the Lightman’s. Her fingers stumbled on the spoon, and Dai gave her a sharp glance, but she stared him down.

  “At least I can get something to work with,” Ashe said. He was eating with one hand, and still fiddling with the map with the other. “I’m guessing this might be what we’re looking for?” He pointed to a smaller chamber, connected to the larger spaces by a single narrow tunnel. The bulkhead between was thicker than the others, almost as thick as the bulkhead that had divided the section from the rest of the parent craft.

  “A treatment room?” Dai said, sounding intrigued in spite of himself.

  “Maybe.” Ashe twirled the map again.

  “Do you mind?” Dai said. Cassilde gave him a grateful look. Between the shifting image and the Lightman’s, she was feeling a little queasy herself.

  “I’d normally say it was sleeping quarters,” Ashe said, “but that bulkhead is way too heavy. There’s something that wanted power behind that. Or there was.” He made no acknowledgement of Dai’s complaint, but at least he’d stopped spinning the map.

  “You say that because—?” Dai squinted at the map.

  “Because of that,” Cassilde said, and pointed, the lights of the map playing over her hand. “That does look like some sort of power node.”

  Ashe nodded. “The daemons say it could be an inert device. Pings were inconclusive, but it’s possible.”

  “Right,” Cassilde said. “So we’ll start there.”

  “Nothing more from the sensor web?” Dai asked, and Cassilde shook her head.

  “It must have been one of us.”

  Ashe nodded, but Dai hesitated. “Maybe I should stay on board, keep an eye out for anything else that might show up.”

  Cassilde weighed the options, the added security of a live person minding the ship against the need to do a thorough survey as quickly as possible. If there had been anything more, any warning from the web, it would be different, but at the moment, speed mattered. “No,” she said. “We’ll risk it.”

  * * *

  Despite the environmental fields that established an arbitrary gravity and atmosphere, and transmitted power to their lights and tools, the wreck was dank and cold. Some of that was psychological, Cassilde knew—it would feel warmer once they were able to rig working lights instead of relying on hand- and helmet-beams—but some of that was the Lightman’s creeping through her body. She could barely feel her feet, in spite of the heated boot liners. She dialed up the heat in her vest, tucked the hood tight around her face, and swung her light and camera methodically around the largest of the claim’s inner volumes.

  “You were right,” she said. “This looks like living space.”

  “I told you,” Ashe said. He had his own recorder out, scanning the walls, and streaks of color bloomed as the light hit them. “Here, put your light over here.”

  Cassilde brought her light to join his, and a series of linked circles swam out of the shadows, pale gold on lavender-gray. “Dai?”

  The pilot trained his light on them as well, widening the picture, but it remained abstract, one large circle linked to a dozen smaller ones, circles smaller still hanging off each of those. “Fractal symbolism?”

  “Maybe.” Ashe broke from the joined lights, followed the diminishing circles up the wall and onto the wall above them, where they faded into invisibility. “Or maybe just decoration.”

  Cassilde swung her light again, scanning the room. Shapes rose like islands from the floor, the remains of furniture—a sweeping curve that might have been a lounge, cubes that might have been chairs or tables, another cube with a shallow depression in one side—and light glittered in a corner. She moved toward it, and it resolved into a lump of cloudy glass the size of her fist. She picked it up, careful of her grip, and felt the familiar deep hum that meant it was active. “I’ve got a music box.”

  “Nice,” Dai said, and nodded as she held it up. “That’s a big one, too.”

  Cassilde nodded, stowing it in her carryall. They were really music boxes, of course, weren’t even boxes, but when a human held them, the glass slowly cleared to reveal twirling threads of light and produced a cascade of pleasant sound. Between it and the BLUE they could salvage from the hull, the job was already making a profit—which was a good thing, if she was going to be incapacitated for a while.

  “We’ll come back,” Ashe said. “This way.”

  They had to pass through two more compartments before they reached the circular opening in the thickened bulkhead. Cassilde swung her light, examining the slot where presumably the original door had disappeared, but there was no sign of it or of any controlling mechanism. Dai produced a heavy metal bar as thick as his wrist and laid it gently in the opening. When nothing happened, he tried wedging it into the gap, but the bar slid into the slot without finding a stop.

  “We’ll be fine,” Ashe said, and stepped through. “We’ve got cutters.”

  Which was true, Cassilde admitted, as long as the transmitter kept functioning. “I thought you didn’t like messing up your finds.”

  “I don’t,” he answered, his light sweeping over the new space. “I just don’t expect we’ll have to.”

  Cassilde lifted her own light, blinking as she began to make sense of the shadowed curves. “Holy—”

  “Yeah,” Dai said. He shrugged off his carryall. “Ashe, you want me to rig some worklights?”

  “Please.” Ashe was moving slowly across the open space, his light flashing over what looked like beds made of woven silver, a cascade of scarlet thread and a chair that spiraled out of the floor.

  There was a sharp click as Dai found metal to take the worklight’s magnet, and the room was suddenly flooded with light. Cassilde switched off her handlight, her breath coming short again.

  The compartment was curved like the inside of a shell, the open space where she and Dai still stood curling down to a narrow alcove, half hidden behind the flowing strands of scarlet. The walls shimmered like nacre, too, palest gold shading toward green in the shadows; there were lines drawn on the floor and up the walls, following the gentle curves. On other installations, similar lines had been filled with flowing light.

  Dai flicked on the second worklight, driving back the rest of the shadows. “Impressive.”

  “Isn’t it?” Ashe had moved the datamote from his face to his collarbone, was rubbing it as though that would make it give up its information. “I’ve never seen anything like it.”

  And if Ashe hadn’t, this might be a unique find. Cassilde killed that hope—it was far too soon to speculate—and said, “Any sign of this lifesaving device?”

  “In the alcove, I think,” Ashe answered. The worklights didn’t quite penetrate its depths; he was still using his handlight to examine the walls. “But I’m not seeing any actual device.”

  “There’s things attached to the beds,” Dai began, and the lights flickered.

  Cassilde grabbed her remote, pinged the ship to check its status. The codes flashed back in the proper sequence, power transmitters all green, ship’s systems green, nothing in the sensor web, and she shook her head. “Nothing here.”

  “I could head back and make sure,” Dai said, reluctantly.

  Cassilde considered, weighing the difficulty of getting out again if they lost the transmission. “You posted glow-dots, right?”

  “Of course.” Dai sounded annoyed, and she gestured an apology.

  “Sorry. Stay, I think. If it happens again, we’ll rethink it.”

  “Better rethink it now.” The stranger’s voice came from the hatch.

  Cassilde spun, reaching for the blaster at her hip, froze as she registered the leveled weapons. There were three of them—no, four, all with heavy military-surplus blasters and body armor over their work vests. Dai swore, and she lifted her hands to show them empty. They must have come from the strange ship, she thought, damped Carabosse’s sensors with their own web. The flicker in the power had been the ship’s final protest against their attack. It wasn’t impossible, but it was difficult enough that she had discounted the possibility, and they were all going to pay for her mistake.

  “Smart woman,” the stranger said. He stepped through the hatch, still with his blaster leveled, a wiry man with a pointed chin and muscles that stood out like brackets at the corners of his mouth. “Hello, Ashe.”

  Dai swore again, not softly.

  Ashe gave a bitter smile. “Hello, darling.”

  The words dripped venom, and the stranger smiled. “Did you really think I wouldn’t follow you?”

  “I thought we had an agreement,” Ashe said. He was keeping his hands in plain sight, raised shoulder high, but the heavy handlight was in his left hand, a possible weapon. Seeing that, Cassilde shifted her weight, tipping ever so slightly to her right. Only the stranger had actually entered the compartment; if Ashe distracted him, there was a chance she could drop behind the closest of the woven-silver beds, and use her blaster from there. It was lighter than the weapons the pirates were carrying, but deadly enough at this short range.

  “Agreements change.” The stranger was scanning the compartment, weapon still leveled, but his eyes elsewhere. Dai saw it, too, and slid one foot forward, but the stranger focused on him instantly. “Don’t.”

  Dai dipped his head in acknowledgement, and in the same moment Ashe swung the heavy light. The stranger stepped into the blow, blocking it with his forearm, and brought the barrel of his blaster hard across Ashe’s face. Ashe dropped to his knees, and Cassilde dove for the dubious shelter of the woven bed, fumbling for her own weapon. Fire creased her shoulder, and her hand spasmed; she dropped her blaster, fingers nerveless, and scrabbled for it with her other hand, heedless now of shelter.

  “Don’t move,” the stranger said, and stepped closer to Ashe, still on his knees. There was blood on his mouth and nose, a bruise already rising on his sallow cheek. “All right, Ashe. Where is it?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Don’t waste my time.”

  “I don’t know,” Ashe said again.

  The stranger lowered the muzzle of his blaster until it rested against Ashe’s temple. Ashe glared up at him.

  “If you kill me—”

  “Oh, never you,” the stranger said. He turned on his heel, the blaster shifting aim before Cassilde could even register his intent. Fire cracked, and the impact knocked her backward, pain filling her belly. She curled around it, too stunned to cry out, heard Dai call her name as if from an immense distance.

  “You bastard,” Ashe said. “You son of a bitch—”

  “She might live,” the stranger said. “But her clock’s running.” There was the sound of a scuffle. “That’s right, hold him.”

  That had to be Dai, Cassilde thought. She rocked slowly, trying to ease the pain, but it clawed up her spine, down into her hips, every nerve on fire.

  “Where is it?” the stranger said again. “I’m waiting, Ashe.”

  “It’s not here,” Ashe said. “I thought it would be, but it’s not—and since it’s not, it has to be—I’ll take you, I’ll show you, I swear—but let me take care of Silde first.”

  “Two minutes,” the stranger said.

  Tears filmed Cassilde’s eyes, blurring her vision. The pain rolled over her in waves, threatening to drown her; she fought through it, gasping, and Ashe knelt at her side.

  They each carried first aid, but the kits were inadequate for something like this. Cassilde heard Ashe crack open his package and then hers, flinched as he pressed both bandage packs against the wound.

  “I will fucking kill you,” Dai said, somewhere in the distance, and she didn’t know if he was talking to Ashe or to the stranger Ashe had called darling.

  There was a sharp pain in her forearm, unfairly distinct against the background agony, and then another. She twisted her head to see, and realized that Ashe had planted both the shock buttons in the flesh of her arm. Already the drugs were taking hold, and she blinked up at him, expecting at least some apology.

  “Green, then the red,” he said, so softly she barely heard him. His back was to the stranger, to Dai, hiding the movement of his lips. “First green, then the red curtain.”

  “Time’s up,” the stranger said. He moved to Ashe’s side, laid the barrel of the blaster against Ashe’s cheek so that it pointed past him at Cassilde. “Come on, Ashe, time to go.”

  “I’m coming,” Ashe said. The stranger stepped back smoothly, and Ashe rose to his feet with only a single backward glance.

  “All right,” the stranger said. “Ashe, you will take me to the device. Usslo, bring that one along.”

  He must mean Dai, Cassilde thought, blinking hard. The buttons’ effect was building, beating the pain back to manageable levels, giving her new strength. She lay still, hoarding it—she would have one good effort, she didn’t dare waste it—and the stranger turned away.

  “Ashe, if you cross me, I’ll kill him, too.”

  “I understand.” Ashe’s voice was tight with fury.

  “What about her?” That was one of the others, though she couldn’t tell which one. The stranger glanced back at her and gave a tiny shrug.

  “Leave her. She’s not going anywhere.”

  Cassilde closed her eyes, shuddering, another wave of pain washing through her. When she opened them, the strangers were gone, leaving her alone in the seashell room, the harsh worklights throwing doubled shadows. The buttons had kicked in, giving her all the strength she was ever going to have, and nothing useful to do with it. It wasn’t fair that she should die like this when she’d been more or less resigned to Lightman’s, not fair at all.

  She hooked one hand over the edge of the silver bed, hauled herself to a sitting position. Ashe’s bandages were doing their job, just like the buttons, staunching the blood where the blast hadn’t cauterized the wound. She recovered her blaster, checking to be sure the charge was still good. Now what? She clutched the blaster harder as another wave of pain rolled through her, and fought to breathe against it. She doubted she could walk; crawling after them was only going to waste what little strength she had.

  And what the hell had Ashe meant, whispering about color? Green, then red—no, she thought, GREEN, then RED. GREEN she had, tucked into the pocket of her vest. It might, it should, give her more strength, maybe enough to stand. She reached for it, fumbled the tiny box, and had to put the blaster down to open it. The sliver of GREEN was less than a centimeter long, and barely thicker than a hair: a quarter’s profit, and all her discretionary income for the year. She licked her fingertip, picked it up, and transferred it to her tongue before she could change her mind.

  The GREEN fizzed, bitter and cold, filling her mouth with metallic saliva. She’d never taken so much at once, and she swallowed hard, once and then twice. The wound in her stomach protested, but the pain was distanced, manageable. She imagined she could feel the GREEN crawling through her nervous system, freezing the pain and shock, and hauled herself to her feet before she could think too much about it.