Every day, waking up feels like I’m strapping on lead boots and daring myself not to sink beneath the dark, dark water. I run in place, and I pretend, but it’s not getting better. Only time will do that, at least according to Vel. He says it like a promise, so I live for the day, maybe fifty turns from now, when I don’t feel sick over what I’ve done.

Gehenna first, though. Vel and I have unfinished business there. He will want to visit Adele—as the last time, she said he’d see her again—and I need to hire Doc’s old friend, Ordo Carvati. There’s a certain symmetry in that. While we tend to those matters, Hit and Dina can go for the open markets and the leashed wildness of life inside the dome. Gehenna was the only place where I ever lived for myself, like a normal person, and therefore, it will always hold a special spot in my heart.

“I will see you later, Sirantha. I have many irons in the fire.”

I have to chuckle at Vel’s attempt to speak colloquially; he always does so with such formality. After watching him go, I rush through the rest of my meetings, and at night, I run instead of sleep, but the memories are always nipping at my heels. In the silence, I wonder how much longer I can continue without breaking. But escape will help; grimspace will welcome me home, no matter what.

A week later, I resign my place at the training facility and turn it over, gladly, to my successor. There is no fanfare when I walk away from New Terra, when I climb the ramp and run toward the cockpit. The stars await me with their cool auras and their nonjudgmental light. As the world falls away behind me, I settle into the nav chair, with Hit beside me. Since we have flown together before, I have no fear of her.

This feels like coming home.

CHAPTER 16

This world fades into beautiful darkness, just nothing and more nothing.

I welcome the black because it means I’m only a whisper away from my first jump in long, long months. Hit jacks in beside me, and she’s mentally disciplined as only a trained killer can be. A whisper of respect filters from her, but that’s all she gives me; everything else belongs to Dina—and that’s how it ought to be.

The phase drive powers up smoothly, hardly shaking the ship at all despite its small size, which means Dina has been hard at work. I gather she’s already installed the mod that permits direct jumps because I feel the cations firing in my veins in response to the ones in the nav com. The ship mind is brand-new, nascent and curious. I let it get to know me as we prepare to make the leap.

With a small shiver, we pass from straight space into the maelstrom. Grimspace blazes in my mind, full of lovely, chaotic colors. The stars have gone, but the ancients left beacons in their place, the ones I reprogrammed at such great cost. They echo with me now, giving a whisper of Jax to eternity, and that knowledge humbles me. Countless eons from now, I will remain, my heartbeat as part of the navigation system for societies I cannot conceive.

Here, I feel whole. But I cannot stay; I would die. As with any living creature, grimspace would drain me and cast me adrift as one of its infinite ghosts. I care too much about those I carry on this ship to let that happen, though I imagine making the jump alone someday . . . and never coming back. I used to dream of retiring on Venice Minor, but I am far past such innocent hopes. The best I can imagine now is dying here, where none can know to mourn me.

Hit gives no sign she’s aware of these thoughts as we prep for the return. I use the new pulses to find Gehenna, then make the fold that permits us to pass through. Hit responds to my mental directions, following with seamless skill. We return smoothly, emerging a few thousand klicks from Gehenna.

Even at this remove, I see the streaks of gold and orange, flashes of red that make it so spectacular from the ground. I can’t imagine what led them to build here, where there isn’t even a breathable atmosphere, but it’s a rich man’s paradise, artificial and full of glamour. They say you can buy any extravagance on Gehenna, provided you have the contacts and the credits. I know from my time with Adele that there are lords of vice who have built their kingdoms on the sins of strangers.

Adele gave me shelter when I needed it most. She awakened a hint of spirituality in a soul that had previously lived only for pleasure. In short, she was the mother I always wanted, and I treasure my memory of my short time with her. I learned so much about human kindness.

Hit taps the comm. “Gehenna authority, this is the Big Bad Sue, requesting clearance and coordinates.”

I grin and mouth at her, The Big Bad Sue?

She shrugs and mutes the mic for a second. “It came with the moniker, and Dina liked it. Like I’m gonna tell her no.”

“I like it, too.” It just strikes me as funny because this little ship clearly isn’t a big bad anything. Sounds to me like the prior owner had a sense of humor.

“Big Bad Sue, what’s your purpose in port?”

“We plan to visit friends and relatives, enjoy your fine hospitality, and spend a few credits.”

“Big Bad Sue, you said the magic words. Are you carrying cargo today?”

Hit shakes her head though only I can see her, as they haven’t engaged the vid—no need and it distracts the pilot. Too many crash landings by those of lesser skill, and they learned better. “Negative, authority. Personnel only.”

“Stand by for docking bay number and trajectory for your arrival. We will, of course, need to scan for contraband.”

“And then tax us on it,” Hit mutters.

I stifle a laugh because that’s so true. They don’t much care what you bring into the dome, unless it’s Morgut, but you damn well better expect to pay the powers that be a cut of the profits. They won’t find anything interesting on us, however; we truly are here to see old friends . . . and trade in information.

Hit takes us in smoothly though she does calculate to make sure they’ve given us the correct trajectory. I haven’t trusted docking personnel since they killed my lover, seventy-five Conglomerate diplomats, and nearly ended my life as well. But the port authority here has no reason to want us dead; they want us to land, clear customs, and spend our credits inside the dome. After landing, it doesn’t take long to pass through the red tape. A routine scan, and we’re on our way.

Gehenna is a wonderland. Even in these difficult times, when interstellar travel is only beginning to recover from the blow I dealt it, the spaceport bustles with activity. Cargo ships from the outskirts whose tired crews look as though they hauled straight space to get here unload crates of raw herbs that will be processed and used to create kosh—one of the more expensive designer drugs, available only under the dome. It’s madly addictive, but it provides penultimate euphoria, or so I hear. I never did kosh; liquor was my drug of choice.

On my way out of the spaceport, I pat my pocket to ensure I have the two data spikes, different information, but destined for the same principal. The slight bulge beneath my fingertips reassures me. If I lost this data, it would mean profound failure, and right now, these missions give me a reason to push forward. I need to finish what I started.

Vel touches my arm to get my attention. “Could we call on Adele before our other business?”

“Of course.” She’s the woman who valued him enough to set him free. Back on Ithiss-Tor, I remember he mentioned a human lover, and it hadn’t taken much for me to connect the dots, given her odd words to him when he came for me clad in Doc’s skin. “Would you prefer to see her alone?”

I don’t want to intrude on a private moment.

But he curls his claws in obvious distress. “No, I would like you to go with me. It will be . . . difficult to see her. It was, when I came hunting you. She had changed so much, even then. It will be worse now.”

“Then I’ll go. I do want to see her . . . She was good to me.”

“That is her way,” he says softly. “So full of kindness.”

“I never knew how you ended up with her.” It’s a leading statement because I want to put it in the form of a question, but I shouldn’t pry.

He thinks a moment, head canted. In many months, I have not seen him in faux-skin. These days, he shows his chitin, if not proudly, then with a certain acceptance. But he is the general of the Ithtorian forces . . . or at least, he was. Vel resigned his commission around the time they booted me politely from the Armada. We’re both free agents now.

“You know everything else,” he answers at last. “I will share this as well if you would listen. But it is a story worth telling properly, not in bits and fragments. Would you have all my words, then, at a time of my choosing?”

“Please.”

The tale will be told with all ceremony and formality because of the great regard he bears for Adele even now. It’s hard for me to resign the image of the older, coffee- skinned woman with someone who would take Vel as a lover, but I can’t wait to hear their story. I know this much, though; he’ll share it at the right time and place.

Once we leave the spaceport, Hit and Dina find a romantic lodging house, all pale stone given a sweet, rosy glimmer by the shadows above the dome. Vel and I continue on, closer to Adele’s neighborhood. I know she will permit me to stay in the garret with its glastique walls, but I’m not sure if Vel would be comfortable there. I don’t ask because his body language reveals clear distress, the closer we get.

The crowd parts around us, giving him a wide berth. Even with the increased Ithtorian galactic presence, people still stop and stare. Women pull their children away from him, and I hear whispers about how Sliders steal little children. Because I know him, their behavior infuriates me, and Vel snags my hand to keep me from popping one especially rude female in the face.

“It does not matter,” he says, spreading his claw in an open gesture.

My chip tells me that signifies letting go, how it all flows away. But anything that hurts him sets my teeth on edge, and it’s been a long time since I cut loose. If they keep this up, I’ll wind up in a Gehenna jail. There are few people I’d fight for these days, but Vel is one of them.

He selects a quiet café a few blocks from Adele’s building, and we take a seat inside, where it is all soft shadows. The servo-bot takes our order, something simple that will not distract me from his secrets. I want them because I have none from him. Not now. He’s seen too much of my past while I know so little of his.

“Here. I will speak here.”

And I sit quiet, rapt with the emotion radiating from him.

[Vel’s story, told to Sirantha Jax in his own words]

I have no mate.

I have no house.

I have no young to guarantee my immortality.

When I die, there will be no one to lay out my body or log the colors of my deeds in the ancient way. I have no colors.

Once, I thought it best that way. I saw my opportunity and took it. The life the stars gave strangled me, and so I ran. I called it by another name, but so many turns distant from the choice, I can name it what it was: cowardice. Shame finds me bare among my own kind, and they know me for what I am. Exile. Outcast. It does not matter that I chose it.

And yet . . .

And yet . . .

For a time, I was happy.