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  So, there I was, standing alone with Villainic and Tamret. They held hands, and Tamret kept her eyes down, like I wasn’t even there. It made me want to scream with frustration.

  Villainic’s hazel eyes were wide and sympathetic, like he was a great big kitty cat. I wanted to punch him in the face.

  “You’re not getting upset, are you?” he asked, like this possibility had just occurred to him.

  “I need a minute with Tamret,” I told him. “There are things we have to discuss.”

  “Here is my proposal,” Villainic said, looking like he’d just had an amazing idea. “You can talk to me alone. Legally, that’s the same as talking to Tamret.” He then put a hand on my back and led me away. Tamret drifted off to talk to Mi Sun and Alice.

  “I know you and Tamret were used to speaking together previously,” he said, sounding sympathetic but also kind of condescending. He was talking to me like I was some little kid and he was the grown-up who knew the way of the world. Well, maybe he was older, and he knew the way of his world, but he wasn’t there anymore.

  “You have to understand,” he was saying, “that things are different now. I don’t want you to see me as a stickler for caste tradition. I’m very open-minded to new ways. I have allowed my sisters to appear many times in public with groups of friends, some of whom are even of a lower caste! How about that for embracing the modern? But in this case my family’s honor is at stake, so it’s better to stick a little more closely to the rules. The only way we would agree to visit this space environment was if the Confederation assured us that our traditions would be respected here, but you don’t seem serious about doing so.”

  “First of all, “ I said, “I don’t know anything about your traditions or my supposed responsibility to uphold them. Second of all, now that I do know, I feel okay about ignoring them.”

  “I see,” Villainic said, looking sad. “We may have a point of disagreement.”

  “I’ll make a note in my log, but right now I need to talk to Tamret alone, and you need to stop getting in my way.”

  “Your needs are not my concern,” Villainic said. “I’m sorry to be so blunt about it, but there it is. I’m not talking about who is right or wrong here, but the fact is, Zeke, you are a much maligned person within this alien culture. They say you’ve done terrible things, and you may face a trial or even imprisonment. I can’t ask you to let my lady become involved in that.”

  “Your lady?” I repeated.

  “Of course I know you care for her too, so please believe me when I say my only concern is that she not be put in danger. Your situation, Zeke, is not really something I want Tamret exposed to.”

  “I am doing my best to resolve all of this,” I said. “I’m hoping the danger will go away.”

  “For your sake I hope so too,” he said. “But I cannot permit anything that would put Tamret at risk of sharing your fate. I am told that you asked to have Tamret brought here because you believed her to be unsafe on her own world. That, as you can see, is no longer the case. She is with me. I was happy to escort her here so she could see her old friends and, to be honest, so I might witness these wonders for myself. When I agreed to this voyage, however, you were under the protection of a powerful patron, and that, as I understand it, has changed. I am sorry you and your friends are facing difficulties, but sharing those difficulties with me and my future wife will not help anyone. As we are under no obligation to stay, we plan on returning to Rarel as soon as we can arrange transport.”

  • • •

  I broke off from the group, mainly to stomp around the campus and work off some of my anger. An hour or so of that hadn’t accomplished much, and I decided to head back to my building so I could be irritated in the comfort of my own room. That’s when I nearly bumped into a bush. I figured I must have been so distracted by my talk with Villainic that I had veered off the path. Then the bush raised one of its branches at me.

  “I’m, like, really sorry,” it said. “I was totally lost in my synaptic processes.”

  I suddenly realized that I knew this bush creature. It was the waiter from the restaurant I’d eaten at my first night on the station, back when I first met Steve and Tamret. It seemed like so long ago.

  “You’re that guy,” I said. “The waiter, right?”

  “I am completely that guy,” it said. “And listen, the place is the roof of the Peripheral Tower.” It gestured with one of his branches toward a building at the far end of the compound. Most of the buildings were low and squat, no more than six stories. This building was probably three times as tall as anything surrounding it, and it also had an entrance on the public side of the periphery, so beings could enter the building without having to enter the compound. I’d thought about it, wondering if I could use it to sneak away, should I decide to do that, but I knew it would never work. There was tight security on both sides.

  “What place?“ I asked the bush. “The roof? What are you talking about?”

  “I’m saying that the roof is pretty much the place. Just remember that, and everything is going to be windy. It’s the place.” It leaned in close. “Some of us are on your side. A lot of us.” Then the bush hurried off, moving more quickly than you might expect of a plant.

  Something was obviously going on, but I had no idea what. What did it mean by “the place”? Was I supposed to go there? Part of me wanted to check it out, but I was afraid to do anything that might get me in trouble until I had more information. It seemed to me like a bad idea to head off somewhere just because some guy I’d met once, last year, had dropped a vague hint.

  I took a few more steps, and then my data bracelet chimed to signal me I had an incoming message. I looked down at the text. Meet me at the place. Now. Live long and prosper.

  I knew what I was supposed to do with the information. There was only one nonhuman on the station I had ever heard make a Star Trek reference. I immediately made my way toward the Peripheral Tower.

  When I went through security at the compound-side entrance, the uncomfortably squidlike peace officer looked at me askance and pulsed his face tentacles in my direction. “Don’t think about trying to get out on the street side,” he said. “You’ll be enveloped in a plasma field if you try. It’s extremely humiliating.” He then coughed out a squid laugh, which was followed by a puff of ink, which dissipated like a blast of cigar smoke.

  “Good to know,” I said, trying to sound casual, though my heart was hammering. Coming here could be a terrible idea. Maybe this was not what I’d thought. Maybe it was a trap. There were always risks, but I had to know.

  I rode the elevator up to the top floor and followed the signs to the door that led out to the roof. There wasn’t much out there, just some benches along the guardrails, offering a nice view of the compound on one side and a busy commercial district on the other. Standing by the rail, with his back to the commercial side, was a very tall, very giraffelike being. It was Dr. Roop.

  • • •

  He wore a jacket with a hood covering most of his face, but he was hard to miss, being almost eight feet tall thanks to the length of his neck. His eyes looked red and tired, and there was a sadness on his face I hadn’t seen before. Even so, it was good to see him.

  He approached me and gave me a big hug. “Zeke, I’m glad to see you’re well,” he said in his curiously Dutch accent. It was one of those inexplicable bits of flavor the translation protocol sometimes provided. “In spite of their best efforts. Your father is safe?”

  I nodded. “He’s back on Earth, looking like his old self.”

  “That, at least, is something,” Dr. Roop said, leading us to sit on one of the benches. “You’ve suffered some losses. You have my condolences.”

  “Thanks,” I said.

  “And once more,” he continued, “they wish to blame you for, against all odds, defeating your enemies.”

  “That is pretty much it,” I said. “What about you? I heard you were a fugitive. What are you doing here? How did you g
et past security?”

  “I have friends,” he said. “There are those of us who have organized to oppose the Movement for Peace, and we are doing our best to look out for you. Tell me, did you speak with Director Ghli Wixxix before our enemies took the ship?”

  “Just once,” I told him. “We were going to talk more and get more details about what she had in mind, but that never happened.”

  “It is vital that you carry out that mission,” Dr. Roop said, looking very serious, “even if the government is now against you. If you don’t find that software and disseminate it to the public, then Junup’s agents will do nothing while the Phands develop a technological superiority that will lead to the destruction of the Confederation. Help me, Zeke,” he said, lowering his neck in what I knew was his version of a smile. “You’re my only hope.”

  “Then you’re out of luck. We’re trapped on the compound, and that mission was always insanity, even when we had the support of the beings in power. The things we did last time, we were prepared for them. You’d been training us, even if we didn’t know it. And Tamret and I had maxed-out skill trees. Now we don’t have any augmentations at all. We’d be going into the unknown, the dangerous unknown, with nothing to protect us.”

  “I know it is a lot to ask, but you are the only one who can do it.”

  “Except that I can’t,” I said, feeling frustrated. This was Dr. Roop, and I would do pretty much anything reasonable he asked of me, but this was not reasonable. “I can’t even get out into the city for a milkshake, let alone risk my life on some crazy quest.”

  “There may be a way to get away from here,” he told me, ignoring the part about not wanting to risk my life. “I’ll contact you when I know more. This will be where we meet unless I tell you otherwise.”

  “Finding a way to leave the compound is just the beginning,” I told Dr. Roop. “We don’t have a hope of doing anything without Tamret, and I can’t even have a conversation with her. And if I can talk to her and get her to agree to go along with this plan—which I’m against, by the way—then how do I live with myself for talking her into something I think is crazy?”

  “These problems can be resolved,” Dr. Roop said. “They have to be. We cannot stand by while Junup’s corruption or indifference leads the galaxy into darkness.”

  “What about the copy of the software my father brought back?”

  “I don’t know what happened to that,” said Dr. Roop. “He may have destroyed it rather than allow it to fall into the wrong hands. He may still have it on him, waiting for the right time to deliver it to beings he trusts. But he is far away, and we can’t reach him. Right now we need you.”

  “I didn’t ask for any of this,” I said, feeling the crushing weight of despair that had become all too familiar to me. “I just wanted to help my world and help Tamret.”

  “I know, Zeke; it’s a lot to fall on your shoulders. But you accomplished so much in the past, when you were merely a delegate. Now you are something far more powerful.”

  “What?” I asked.

  He lowered his neck again. “A rebel.”

  I snorted. “That’s us. Just a scrappy band of ragtag rebels taking on the evil empire against impossible odds.”

  “It would make a good entertainment.”

  It isn’t so entertaining when you’re living it.

  I took in a breath. This was the deal. Dr. Roop was my friend, and he had gone to bat for me in the past. He’d helped me every step of the way before. He’d broken the law to recruit allies for me—the beings who were now my best friends. He’d made it possible for me to save my father and, less directly, my planet. Now, because he had done all those things, he was a fugitive. I knew he wouldn’t ask this of me if he didn’t have to, and he wouldn’t send me on a mission if he thought it was too dangerous. I knew I had no choice. There was only one thing to do, and that was to help him.

  “Right before I left, my father told me what I already knew, which was that I could trust you more than anyone in the Confederation. So, if you really believe I need to do it, I’ll try.”

  He lowered his neck again. “Thank you, Zeke.”

  “What now?”

  “I’ll be in touch again when I’ve formulated a plan. In the meantime, prepare the others, and try to keep a low profile. Also, do your best to avoid antagonizing Junup further.”

  “That’s popular advice these days.”

  “The less he is worried about you, the safer you will be.”

  “I get it,” I told him.

  “I knew you would. Be careful in all things,” he said, turning away to indicate that our meeting was over.

  I stood up and took a few steps away, and then I turned back. “So, uh, you didn’t, by any chance, implant an alien artificial intelligence in my head, did you?”

  He turned back. Under the hood his eyes widened. “That was a question I had not anticipated.”

  I told him about Smelly, and he listened with what I was sure was a great deal of interest. I was looking for signs of alarm, but I didn’t see any.

  “This is remarkable,” he told me. For a moment he forgot about hidden fortresses and forbidden zones and secret Former skill trees. This was simply something cool he could geek out over. “Rumors of these magnificent beings have circulated for centuries, but none has ever been discovered. They are said to be manifestations of sublime intellect and insight.”

  At last—an enlightened being! Smelly chimed in.

  I held up my hand. “Hold it right there. This thing is full of itself enough as it is.”

  “I am sure with good reason,” Dr. Roop said. “But no, I had no part in this. You must have encountered a Former artifact while on the prison planet and been exposed to it then. That is the most likely explanation. I wish I had time to speak to it through you.”

  “It’s helped out a couple of times,” I told Dr. Roop. “Otherwise, it’s not so great.”

  Don’t lie to your friend, Smelly said.

  “Regardless,” Dr. Roop told me, “this is encouraging news. An intellect like that is a formidable ally. I believe that with it on your side, your chances of success are excellent. Speak of it to no one.”

  “Yeah, I’m pretty sure I don’t see the upside to letting anyone know I’ve got this thing in my brain.”

  Dr. Roop nodded. “Good. And trust this intelligence. If it offers you advice, you must take it. Now you’d better get going. I have a narrow window in which to slip out of here.”

  I took one last look at the only Confederation citizen I knew I could trust, and I headed out.

  On the elevator down, Smelly said, I like your friend. It’s pretty smart for a meat bag.

  “Shut up,” I told him, which was not the smartest thing in the world, because there were two other beings riding along in that car. They slowly inched away from me.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  * * *

  Okay, so I had some goals now. It’s good to have direction. I had to get Tamret to talk to me so I could let her know everything that was going on without alerting her annoying fiancé. I then had to convince everyone that rather than planning an escape back home, we should plan on impossibly carrying out Director Ghli Wixxix’s dying wish and venture on a hopeless mission into the unknown, beneath the surface of the station. As a general rule, people can be reluctant to visit a place called the Forbidden Zone, but I had to convince them that going was not an idiotic thing to do.

  I was halfway across the compound when I received a message that Interim Director Junup wanted to meet with us in two hours. There was nothing to do but to wait it out, hear what he had to say, and then see how I wanted to proceed afterward.

  I showed up in the meeting room a little early, but the other humans and Steve were already there. A few minutes later Tamret and Villainic came in and sat at the far end of the table, away from us. I looked over at Tamret. Her ears pivoted toward me, and she smiled. Villainic whispered something in her ear, and she looked down.

 
Junup now stormed into the room, his cape rippling dramatically, which I suspected was the main purpose of the cape. He was followed by Ardov, who was wearing a crisply tailored, boxy Confederation suit, his Movement for Peace armband on full display. Junup sat behind the desk, and Ardov stood behind him, like he was at attention. Without looking at us, Junup called up a projection of text from his data bracelet. He grunted as he looked it over and then waved a finger in what I believed was a signature. The text vanished.

  “I apologize,” he said. “Being interim director is a whirlwind of activity. I am afraid it never stops.”

  No one spoke, perhaps because we didn’t believe Junup was actually apologizing for anything, and perhaps because he seemed to be inviting us to say how sorry we were that taking over the job of a being he had probably murdered was turning out to be sort of a bummer.

  Junup looked like he was about to say something else, but then he looked at Villainic. “Who are you?”

  Villainic smiled and then stood up and bowed in a way that appeared both respectfully old-fashioned and laughably dumb. There were lots of hand flourishes, some head bobbing, and a little dance with his left foot. “I am Villainic, Fifth Scion of House Astioj, Third Rung of the Caste of the Elevated.”

  “How fascinating,” Junup said, “but my inquiry had more to do with what you are doing in this room at this moment.”

  Villainic performed the same bow, though the foot movements were a little different this time. It’s nice to have some variety. “I beg your pardon, Interim Director Junup. As Tamret, Scion-Betrothed of House Astioj, has folded her being into my caste, I am her protector and so responsible for her safety. This was negotiated by your representatives when they came to Rarel. Our custom is that she may not travel without my permission and accompaniment.”

  Junup summoned a keyboard and tapped furiously for a moment. “Yes, my records indicate you’ve been given security clearance.”

  “That the [honor deities] have chosen my family for special notice is on record,” Villainic said.