Crim let out a long sigh. “At least in the greenhouses I was with your mother.” Both of them fell silent for a moment, remembering how Marla Chan Tylar had been killed by the Klikiss. “I guess I have a pretty dim Guiding Star. For the time being I’m satisfied to be working with you.”

“I’m glad we got that resolved, then.”

And they were off to Jonah 12, where Jess and Cesca had planted a seedpool of wentals some months earlier. “Did I ever tell you what happened the time I came to supply the Roamer base, but found all the Klikiss robots already there? I rescued Speaker Peroni — ”

“You’ve told everyone that story more than once,” Crim said, but not in a surly voice. “It seems to grow more dramatic each time.”

“I couldn’t make this stuff up.”

“Well, you handled yourself well; that’s all I’ve got to say.”

Nikko was happy to accept the compliment.

The ship finally arrived at the frozen planetoid, its cargo bay ready to be filled with a swell of fresh wentals. A few old Roamer control satellites and orbital-processing stations remained high overhead; the radio bands were silent except for the background hiss of static. Nikko felt a lump in his throat, remembering the terrors he had endured in this place. As he flew the ship down toward the planetoid, his father stared out the windowports, awestruck at the size of the ice crater left by the reactor explosion.

“Look!” Crim said. “I see lights down there.”

“Must be reflections from stars. Nobody’s left on Jonah 12.”

His father scowled at him. “I know what a reflection looks like. That’s intrinsic phosphorescence. Something luminous is locked in the ice.”

Nikko studied his readings, saw energy blips. “Then it’s probably the wentals waiting for us.” During the descent, he spotted more than just the refrozen ice of the crater or the shimmer of energy. He saw some makeshift structures — a little hut connected to an escape pod.

Frowning, he fiddled with the communications system, turned up the pickup strength, and searched standard Roamer emergency bands. Finally, he picked up a faint oscillating pulse. “Someone’s crashed down there, Dad!”

Crim had already reached the same conclusion. “So land the ship already.”

Once on the surface, Nikko made out a very cleverly constructed shelter that appeared to be made from the remnants of a large satellite appended to a Roamer escape pod. He detected energy sources and strong thermal readings emanating from inside the shelter. “Chances are, whoever crashed is still alive.”

Crim was already suiting up, and as soon as locking bolts secured theAquarius to the ice, Nikko scrambled out to join his father. “An escape pod contains supplies only for a week or so, right?”

“Depends on how many people are inside,” Crim transmitted over the helmet radio as the two emerged from the airlock. “I’d be very disappointed if our survivor died yesterday because we didn’t show up soon enough.”

They hurried across the ice. Nikko saw splashes of glowing light beneath his feet as if each footstep ignited some kind of luminescence. He stopped in front of the pod and studied the satellite fuselage attached to its side. “Do we knock?”

The dwelling was cobbled together without neat corners and angles; flat pieces were stuck everywhere, even if they didn’t fit — no aesthetic accomplishment, but it seemed functional. Nikko couldn’t believe that such a hodgepodge could be airtight and structurally sound, but a cocoon of flowing ice had covered the joints and sealed them. Obviously, thewentals had armored and insulated this place. Maybe they had even supplied additional energy to keep the person or people alive.

Crim transmitted, “Hello, escape pod. Anybody in need of a rescue in there?” He pounded on the hatch with his gloved fist.

The pod’s access door was so small that only one of them could cycle through at a time. With a knot in his stomach, hoping he wouldn’t find one or more bodies inside, Nikko went first.

Inside stood a shaggy old man with beard stubble, unkempt hair, and rumpled clothes. He had a huge grin on his face. “Well, it’s about damn time. I could use some company besides those flashing lights.”

Nikko recognized him. “Caleb Tamblyn?” As soon as he popped open his faceplate and took a breath, the stench made him wrinkle his nose: body odor, stale air, improperly recycled wastes. He doubted old Caleb could even notice the smell anymore (not that the man had ever smelled as fresh as a rose). The escape pod’s life-support systems must have been on their last gasp. He stepped away from the hatch so that his father could cycle through. When Crim Tylar entered behind his son, the escape pod became extremely crowded.

“How long have you been here?” Nikko asked.

“About three weeks, as far as I can tell. Maybe four.”

“Impossible,” Crim said. “Your supplies couldn’t last that long.”

Caleb snorted. “Any Roamer worth his salt can figure out solutions. and, well, I had a little help from the wentals. They provided enough energy to get by on less food. I’m awfully damn hungry, though. You have mealpax aboard your ship?”

“Plenty of them,” Nikko said.

Once aboard theAquarius, Caleb wolfed down self-heating rations. He explained how the faeros had destroyed his water tanker and Denn Peroni had been obliterated. “I didn’t think anyone would be looking for us, but I wasn’t about to give up.” Caleb shrugged his bony shoulders. “Those faeros really piss me off. We didn’t do anything to deserve this. Poor Denn. ”

He looked around for a bunk so he could take a nap, but Crim told him in no uncertain terms that it would be a wise idea for him to use the ship’s sanitary facilities to clean himself up first.

“We can take you directly to Plumas,” Nikko suggested. “I assume you want to go back to the water mines?”

“Wynn and Torin are probably overloaded with work and mad at me for leaving them, but I’ve had a long time to sit there and think about my Guiding Star.” Caleb leaned back in a hard passenger chair. “This war seems a lot more important than the family water business. If you’re gearing up to fight those faeros, I’d like to see this through to the end.”

103

Del Kellum

On the Golgen skymine, Del Kellum was happy to receive Kotto Okiah and his entourage. Whatever the engineer came up with would certainly be interesting. Kotto came to the Osquivel shipyards in a midsized Roamer transport that seemed a little too large, given his limited piloting abilities. When Kellum learned that Tasia Tamblyn was in the cockpit, however, he granted permission for the craft to land on a small mid-level landing deck. He took a lift down from the ops center, pulled on a jacket against the cool breezes, and went out to meet them.