That promise startled the woman. She took a deep breath, and her face turned, whispering a few words to someone unseen. And then because she couldn’t believe Washen—because no little passenger could stand in the way of a Submaster—she dropped her head in resignation and slowly backed away from the door, allowing the two great captains to step inside.

By law, the structure’s interior had to maintain certain historic standards. And for her trouble, the resident was granted some fat financial benefits. Washen naturally assumed that the standards weren’t being maintained. That would almost explain the woman’s brittleness. But if there were discrepancies, they were subtle ones. Without tapping the old data banks, Washen couldn’t find anything worse than a few little rooms that had been remodeled to make several kinds of alien guests feel comfortable.

The house covered only a hectare of ground, and the walking tour took a matter of minutes. She and Pamir strolled through entertainment rooms and social rooms and an old-fashioned library, complete with glass books and paper books sealed behind sheer diamond screens. An indoor pond triggered memories. “I learned to swim in there,” Washen mentioned. Then she showed Pamir each of the three rooms that she had claimed for herself, at various stages of her childhood, the last one as far from her parents’ room as possible. Finally, they entered the big ancient kitchen where a person, if she was so moved, could cook without the aid of robots or smart-meals. Stoves big enough to feed a brigade stood against one long wall, ignored but ready. Pots and tubs made of steel and hyperfiber hung from copper pipes lashed to the high ceiling. And in the middle of the room, sitting before a simple wooden table, was a stranger. He was a smallish man taking a last deep sip of a thick hot narcotic drink. When the Submasters entered the room, he moaned. When they looked at him, he threw his glass down and sobbed, then dropped his face, nose mashed against the yellow wood. The half-covered mouth offered a squeak before muttering, “Forgive me.”

The woman stood in a different doorway. In the yard, squinting through the windows, were maybe half a hundred curious neighbors.

“I’m very sorry,” the little man whispered.

Pamir laughed.

Softly but furiously, he asked, “After what you’ve done? Why shouldn’t we just kick you to pieces?”

The man trembled, saying nothing.

Washen settled into a facing chair. Her expression was distracted, but she heard enough to say, “Tell us,” as she cupped her hands before her. Holding nothing, she stared at her hands, and said, “The entire story. Tell us.”

The man made his confession in what seemed like a single breath. He was a lifelong technician who had worked in the Alpha port, and when the Waywards came, he had abandoned his post. He went into hiding. He bought a new face and body, then the war came and went, and he decided to change his face twice more, building a new identity that should have been perfect. But it obviously hadn’t been. He was staying here with his sister, which must have been his mistake. But it wasn’t the security troops that had found him, no. Who could imagine it? The First Chair and Second Chair had both come here, which meant that for some incredible reason he must be regarded as an enormous criminal.

Pamir smiled, loving the whole string of coincidences that had conspired to produce this very unexpected moment.

But Washen barely noticed. Her cupped hands pulled apart, dropping the nothingness that they had held, and she watched the nothingness roll off the tabletop, her head tipped to one side, as if listening for an echo nearly as old as herself.

“Stand,” Pamir commanded.

The technician jumped to his feet and almost fell over.

“Sober up,” the Second Chair advised. “And then return to your post. Today. If you can do those two things—sobriety and work—and if you can remember how to do your work, I’ll speak to the Master Captain about clemency. Is that understood?”

“You would do that for me?”

“I’m not doing this for you. This is for the ship’s own good.” With his nexuses and his personal authority, Pamir had both identified this woman and tracked down her missing brother, and he was already wiping the record clean. Technicians were precious, particularly today. The man hadn’t joined the Waywards, which was a fat plus. And besides, it would make this moment considerably less funny if he had the criminal thrown into the brig.

“Thank you,” said the grateful technician. “Sir. Madam.”

With the scrape of wood against tiles, Washen pushed back her chair and stood again. If she had heard a word in the last couple minutes, she didn’t mention it. Instead, she adjusted the tilt of her mirrored hat, and with a distant little smile, she asked, “How long have you lived here?”

The woman swallowed, then confessed, “For the last seventeen centuries. Madam.”

Washen nodded.

After a moment’s consideration, she said, “That’s ten times longer than I lived here.” Then Washen smiled, and winked. “This is your house now. Do what you want with it. Remodel it. Tear it down and build another. Whatever you wish to do, you may.”

“Madam—?”

“But if you find anything interesting … anything that seems old and odd … please, send it to me, please?”

Two

Humans began as perishable apes, but aeons ago they infused their bodies with synthetic genes and bioceramic minds, creating souls more durable than the exposed face of any simple rock. This basaltic hill was a prime example. Since the first day of her rule, the Master Captain and her highest officers had met on this ground, and during that tenure the shoreline had eroded noticeably, the original black boulders gnawed down to mere stones that quietly rolled off into the patient surf. What began as a proud high hill seemed rather less impressive today, and much the same might be said of the Master Captain. To the eye, she looked as everyone would expect—massive and queenly and cold-faced—but her enemies had grievously injured her during the Wayward War. Her body was only recently reborn, golden flesh and tough bone reconstituted beneath her comatose head. Newly minted nexuses had been implanted, her body swelling in response, linking her mind to the widest possible array of systems and sensors. In narrow terms of schematics, she was the same as she had always been. Yet despite her very narrow survival—indeed, because she was fortunate to be alive at all—she had been changed. Transformed, even. The Master sat on the traditional black chair, high-backed and thickly varnished, carved from a single piece of polished kallan teak; but except for a veneer of authority and moral certitude, this was an entirely different person. Reconstituted from the brink of nothingness, she had been reinvented in a thousand ways. And even more important, virtually every one of her Submasters was new to the office, and oftentimes new to the ranks of the captains. Most were human, yes. But not all, and who would have imagined such a thing? A pair of fierce harum-scarums sat on convenient boulders. Dressed in a water suit, a gillbaby stood at mock attention, while a little fef and a Janusian hermaphrodite amiably traded stories of the war. Three decorated members of the AI corps were scattered among the organics, each buried inside a rubbery face and humanoid body. Aliens and machines now wore the mirrored uniforms of captains, each displaying the epaulets of the highest offices—an honor won when they helped defeat the Waywards. But stranger even than their appearance was their mood: In every past meeting, the Master had set the tone and defined the heart of every discussion. Her orders were usually cast beforehand, and sitting on this hilltop was meant to be a tidy dance of ego and pride and enduring traditions. Yet on this bright warm illusion of a day, the reborn Master appeared just a little bit unsure of herself. While her officers talked among themselves, often in nonhuman languages, her vast hands clung to one another, and her new face turned almost transparent, blank eyes gazing off into the distance while a voice that could just be heard above the quiet surf asked nobody in particular—with a distinctly nervous honesty asked nobody in particular—“Where are my first two Chairs?”