“It looks impressive,” Catriona Saleeb said.

“Yes.” For once Troblum felt content. He looked at the featureless suit of matte gray armor standing in the middle of the cabin with its round helmet almost touching the ceiling. It was big, adding about twenty-five percent to his existing bulk. That didn’t matter; the electromuscle bands could move it around easily enough. Walking would be effortless. As would flying, thanks to the little regrav unit he’d incorporated. There were no weapons, of course; he couldn’t even think along those lines. But the defenses … He would be safe anywhere. In other words, he could even face the Cat and not piss himself as he had on Sholapur.

I should have built one of these a long time ago.

At his order the two small assemblybots crawled down the suit like oversize spiders and scuttled away. He reached out to the table where his snack rested and picked up a wedge of the club sandwich.

His exovision display showed him the Spike, now a mere three light-years away. Its anchor mechanism was creating a huge distortion that extended out from spacetime to warp the surrounding quantum fields. He found the effect fascinating; it was nothing like a human hyperdrive. Unfortunately, the Mellanie’s Redemption lacked the kind of sensors that could run a truly comprehensive scan.

Troblum finished the snack, washed it down with some Dutch lager, and started putting on the armor suit. By the time he was comfortably ensconced, the starship had dropped out of hyperspace two thousand kilometers out from the Spike’s sunward side. Visual sensors showed him the fantastic curving triangle of metallic chambers glistening in the bright sunlight like silver bubbles. Dark tubes wove between them in complex convolutions. He immediately understood why the crew of the navy ship that had discovered it believed they’d found the galaxy’s biggest starship; the shape was intrinsically aerodynamic. Space on either side of the giant alien habitat was filled with the dull glimmer of the Hot Ring arching away to infinity, bolstering the notion that it was frozen in midemergence.

He flew the starship across the sunward surface, accelerating to match the structure’s unnatural orbital vector. Bright flashes of blue-white sunlight burst from the mirror facets of the sail shape as Mellanie’s Redemption moved above the uneven segments. Sensors scanned landing pads dotted all along the winding H-congruous transport tubes, searching out a specific profile. The Mellanie’s Redemption certainly hadn’t been able to track their target in stealth mode during the flight; he was just hoping they’d arrived in time.

“There they are,” he said finally.

“Oscar’s ship?” Catriona asked.

“Yeah. They’ve landed close to Octoron. That figures; it’s the largest human settlement.” He ordered the smartcore to put them down on an empty pad two kilometers from Oscar’s ship. A weak localized gravity field came on as soon as they touched down, but Troblum kept the ultradrive powered up just in case. The smartcore aimed a communication laser at the starship he’d followed from the Greater Commonwealth. “I’d like to speak to Oscar Monroe, please,” he said when his u-shadow told him a connection had been accepted.

“And you must be Troblum,” Oscar said.

The burst of fright that came from hearing his name made him twitch. Electromuscle amplified the motion. His armor helmet hit the cabin ceiling. Secondary thought routines immediately brought up the command for Mellanie’s Redemption to power straight into hyperspace and flee. A single thought was all it would take to trigger it. “How did you know my name?”

“Paula Myo said you might make contact.”

“How did she know?” Even as he asked, he knew the SI had told her, had betrayed him.

“Damned if I know,” Oscar said. “She scares the shit out of me, and we go way back. Then again, how did you know I was on board the Elvin’s Payback?”

“Is that the name of your ship? What was he like?”

“Adam? Like me, misguided in that way only the truly young can be. Is that what you wanted to ask?”

“No. I may be able to help.”

“How’s that?”

“I know about the Swarm. I helped build it. Ozzie, Araminta, and Inigo might find that useful.”

There was a long pause. “I’m sure they would. We’ve already made contact with Ozzie. There’s a capsule coming to collect us from our airlock in ten minutes. Why don’t we fly over to yours straight after.”

“Okay. I’ll wait for you.”

Afterward he stood on a vast snow-swept tundra, completely naked yet feeling no pain. Somewhere in the distance tall mountains with fearsome rocky pinnacles guarded the edge of the rough icy country, a geological wall between civilization and the wild where he had come from. He wasn’t cold despite the harsh wind and flurries of snow brushing against him. This was home, after all, his one refuge against the rest of his life and all the anguish it brought whenever he lived it.

It was daytime, yet the sun was invisible behind the low gray clouds that filled the sky. He walked across the frozen ground, his feet leaving crisp indentations in the firmly packed snow. From somewhere out amid the rolling folds of this austere landscape he could hear the snorting and stamping of horses. Then a wild herd of the giant animals charged over a distant crest, tossing their mighty heads, horns slashing at the frosty air. He smiled in delight, remembering times when he’d ridden the breed for no reason other than enjoyment, taking trips to other villages, meeting friends, practicing his saddle skills, the formalized ancient fighting techniques that all the youngsters sought to master. Back before-

It wasn’t snow brushing against his skin anymore. He plucked one of the slowly drifting particles out of the air only for it to disintegrate between his fingers. Ash. Powder puffed up from beneath the soles of his feet as each footfall became soft. Ash covered the land, choking grass and tree alike, ruining the rich living terrain. The blanket of ash blew away from a high mound ahead of him, revealing it to be the corpse of a huge winged creature. Feathers fell like autumn leaves to expose dry skin pulled tight over a sturdy skeleton.

“No,” he exclaimed. The king eagles were the most magnificent of Far Away’s creatures. Countless times he had sat astride one and soared through the splendid sapphire sky.

Orange light shimmered across the desolate landscape. He spun around to see the mountains erupting, their sharp pinnacles disintegrating as lava gushed upward. Massive explosion plumes clotted the sky, surging outward.

There were footfalls in the ash carpet behind him. The stench of burning flesh grew and grew until he thought he would choke on the cloying fumes.

“This is not your sanctuary,” she said. “This is where I nurtured you. This is where your heart belongs. This is mine. You are mine.”

He couldn’t turn around. Couldn’t face her. To do so would be to lose, to be consumed by pain and diseased love.

Gold sunlight speared through the suffocating shroud of ash, a single incandescent ray falling across him. He shielded his eyes from it, cowering.

“Come on, son,” a kindly voice said. “This is the way. This is your future. This is your redemption.”

Ash clouds boiled high and fast, towering above him, taking form. The beautiful golden light held. He stretched his arms out, reaching for-

“Wooah!” Aaron woke and sat up fast, arms windmilling against the thin sheet that was wrapped around him. “Shitfuck!” His body was sweating profusely, making the silk sticky against him.

The room was on the first floor of Ozzie’s house, with a single bed in the middle, some crude wooden furniture, and a window with the big shutters firmly closed. Nonetheless, light was stealing around the edges. Allowing him to see-“Shit!” he yelped.