Cosmosis

“You coming with us or not?” I asked.

“I’ll think about it.”

“Nai?” I prompted.

“Leadership suits you Nemuleki,” she said, “but don’t think we can’t still browbeat you into doing what we say.”

“I said I’ll think about it!” she protested.

“Tasser, finish her off!” Nai said.

My best friend didn’t hesitate.

“Oh Nemuleki, most beautiful Lady…on this deck…won’t you please join us on our harrowing journey into enemy territory? We can promise you endless danger and thrilling adventure.”

“Like sunny beaches, or little drinks with umbrellas in them,” Sid piled on.

Nai was the only alien who understood drinks with umbrellas, but the rest of the joke landed well enough for Nemuleki to break down laughing all over again.

“Let me talk to Captain Serral first,” she finally said. . “We’ll see.”

“Well think fast. We leave in less than two days,” I said. “Hey, we’ve got to run and talk to Peudra, but let me know if you guys need any help settling into the Siegfried. I know people.”

“I’m sure I am far too competent and beautiful to need such assistance…but if someone like Wurshken needs help I’ll be sure to point him to you,” Nemuleki said.

“Hey!” Wurshken frowned, and everyone laughed some more before I went to indulge my favorite Vorak diplomatic wizard.

····

We wound up grabbing lunch in the Siegfried’s mess first, but Peudra actually insisted it was a good thing to keep her waiting.

“Which Vorak languages do any of you know?” Peudra asked, after we did get started.

“I’ve got a decent psionic dictionary for Tarassin,” I said. “But I wouldn’t say I’m conversational with it. I speak choppy-like.”

Peudra gauged my last sentence carefully.

“Mmm. Not quite passable, but not the worst I’ve heard either. Who else?”

“I know Tarassin too,” Tasser said in the same language. His confidence seemed enough to get Peudra’s seal of approval.

“I know some Natz?” Nai hazarded.

“Please, if you would show me.”

“Gelis enta—enti bel do anra?”

Peudra gave Nai a blank stare, like she wasn’t sure how to speak without being obscenely rude.

“…Which way is the ocean?” Nai explained.

“Enti means ‘road’, not direction, and… anra? That does not mean ‘ocean’.”

“Never mind then,” Nai said testily.

“And you, Sid, Jordan?” Peudra asked.

“We’ve got the same Tarassin dictionary Caleb does,” Jordan said.

“I’ve got one for Edutur too,” Sid said.

Peudra grimaced. “Edutur is not used in the region we’re destined for. Its dialects are only used in a handful of places on the homeworld, but it’s widely used in Sinnesana.”

“That’s where I got it,” Sid nodded.

“I’ll see about getting copies of more psionic dictionaries, but I think with four passable speakers you should manage,” Peudra said. “Starspeak is not as popular a language on homeworlds, but you’ll likely encounter a few speakers. In a pinch, your military escort should be able to help. Truthfully, it might be to our advantage if the Warlock is seen being clumsy with local languages. It might allay any fears about having someone like you on the planet.”

“The worst spy in the cosmos?” Nai smiled. “I actually think I like that.”

“Exactly what kind of military escort has been arranged?” I asked. “You said you could tell now.”

“Yes. They’re here,” Peudra explained. “It’s why it was better for you to eat first. It gave me time to talk with them and Captain Serral.”

“They’re here?” I asked. “I didn’t realize any new ships came in.”

“They came up yesterday with me,” Peudra explained.

“I’ve seen your ship, Peudra, you can’t fit a military escort in that little…what do you even call it? A pinnace?”

“Caleb, I shall remind you in your own words that I am a diplomatic wizard without peer,” they said. “Following your example, I have schemed and woven trickery to be applauded; the Jack’s military escort will consist of only two people.”

On the surface, that seemed like excellent news. But then why tiptoe around me with the information?

“Don’t handle me,” I warned the rak.

“You do know these individuals,” Peudra admitted. “The Red Sails and Deep Coils are the fleets that patrol Margatha’s skies, and they agreed for you to be overseen by Tox Frebi and Halax Ba.”

“[Motherfucker…]” I swore.

And my day had been going so well.

“Tox and Halax are onboard right now?” I asked.

“They’re under supervision in temporary accommodations pending berths on the Jack,” they answered.

I looked at Nai. “Did you know about this?”

“No,” she frowned. “Serral hinted they might be familiar faces, but I didn’t realize our escort would be flying with us.”

“I think we all figured they would be on another ship,” Tasser agreed.

“It seems I have miscalculated your fondness for these rak,” Peudra admitted. “I apologize. But…”

“But even if I’ve got [beef] with them personally, the mission only improves with just them for an escort,” I followed. Bitterly.

“Shall I bring them in?” Peudra asked.

I waved my hand, trying not to show just how irritated I was. It was unprofessional if nothing else.

“…Yes,” Nai said.

I actually pulled the pin on one of my candled radars—I could get Nai to replace it for me later— when Peudra sent a psionic signal to another section of the Siegfried.

A minute later, two of my least favorite Vorak floated into the conference room and pulled themselves into seats.

“Hello Caleb. Still bathing in the blood of children?” Tox said.

“…Nice company,” I said.

It seemed like Nai might say something, Jordan too. But Halax beat them to it.

“Are you going to have a problem with me?” he asked.

“How’s our mutual friend?” I asked, ignoring his question.

“[Green with envy,]” he said simply. Who cares if he was flexing his English?

I frowned.

Dustin had kept me in the loop about their AI problems, and I knew that Halax had been told about SPARK and CENSOR. Still, I didn’t like that he was in the loop.

Tox probably knew too.

But speaking of Tox…

“How are you two here?” I asked. “We agreed to a military escort, but Tox isn’t even part of the Red Sails anymore and Halax is like Nai; on loan to human organizations.”

“I’m still a formal member of the Red Sails,” Halax said. “Tispas gave me this assignment personally.”

“And the Marshal for the Deep Coils is Tox Serignar,” Tox explained. “We’re siblings. Seri asked me for a favor.”

I rolled my eyes. It was beyond annoying that two of them were here. Surely it was worth it though, right? Right? The alternative was two dozen otters armed literally to the teeth staring over my should just waiting for the first excuse they could find to throw the book at us…

It was too close to call.

“Wait, wait…” Sid said. “You quit the Sails…to join up with Nora’s crew…but then your sibling runs another fleet…and they pull you out of Nora’s crew…to give oversight on us?”

“Broadly speaking, yes,” Tox said, practically preening.

“This entire thing sounds stupid,” Sid scoffed. “Isn’t this entire venture doomed the second anyone important looks at what our ‘military escort’ actually is?”

“It’s bureaucracy,” Peudra said. “It doesn’t matter how authorities might feel if the Jack’s clearances are legitimate. And with these two furfish , we have legitimate passage at the behest of the two of the three highest military authorities in the star system.”

The novelty of that word coming out of a Vorak’s mouth was complimented by just who it was aimed at. But it wasn’t enough to make me feel any better.

“Neither of whom are actually here,” I pointed out. “Sid’s right, if that third one hears about this and doesn’t like it, they could easily designate the Jack a military target.”

“That ‘third one’ you’re talking about is Grand Marshal Kraymish, commander of the home fleet’s forces,” Peudra said. “And the home fleet is well aware of the Flotilla’s presence in V1. It happened with their approval. The only authorities you might run afoul of are strictly local ones in the region we’re visiting.”

“I hate to say it, Caleb, but it does seem like Peudra’s done their homework,” Nai said. “Mercy to Tispas is paying off.”

“[Damn well better…]” I muttered.

Jordan asked.

I told her.

“I’d like more information on where we can start looking for these abductees,” Jordan said. “Both alive and dead.”

“Of course,” Peudra said. “Which would you like to hear about first?”

“Alive,” Jordan decided.

“Our information is thin then,” Halax said. “Peudra talked to me about what your Human friend said, and I sent some messages to some rak I know around there. One got back to me.”

“And what—” I bit my tongue before I could finish the question. If you can’t say something nice, don’t say anything at all, Caleb.

“…I went to rearing school with two Vorak siblings named Macoru and Mavriste,” he explained. “I haven’t talked to them since we were kids, and it’s not like we were close, but they took my call. They’ve been all over the planet, and they’ve seen a lot. Their message was brief, but they confirmed they’d seen a living human on Kraknor last year.”

“Where?” I asked.

Peudra and Halax exchanged looks. This must be the catch.

“Same place as the corpses,” Peudra answered, offering a psionic connection. She was opening up a map construct for us to look at. It depicted Kraknor’s surface dominated by water. Eighty percent of the place was ocean.

Peudra highlighted one of the continents that stretched across the planet’s equator.

“This continent is divided into two regions, Vayoti to the east, and Ogi to the west. Most of the western coast of the continent makes up a number of states and island metropolis’s that get broadly referred to as the Ogi Coast,” they explained.

Nodding to Halax, he took over. Peudra letting him indicate parts of the map with his own psionics.

“Macoru and Mavriste said they would be… here—” Halax highlighted a city nestled into a huge bay. “—for the foreseeable future. They’ve agreed to meet and share more details in-person.”

“What’s wrong with email?” Sid snorted.

“I couldn’t tell you,” Halax said. “What I can tell you is this: even when we were kids, those two were the most skilled Adepts I ever met. So tread carefully around them.”

“That advice would be a lot more valuable if we had any way to know anything about them other than what you tell us,” I said.

“I can look into them as well,” Peudra assured me.

“Just the one lead? Fine. Meet Halax’s grade school friends for Ingrid, what about the corpses?” I asked.

“There lies the opposite problem,” Peudra admitted. “Based on the documents my source recovered, we know the coffins were delivered to this region, but it’s just that: a regional code. We can’t confirm which among these thirty-three splash ports took in the delivery.”

“Splash ports?” Jordan asked.

“Most cargo delivered to Kraknor from other planets is dropped from orbit to designated zones of the ocean. Sea currents or vessels then move the cargo to designated landfall points called splash ports.”

“Is thirty-three that many to check?” Nai asked. “If we’re on the ground, it wouldn’t be that difficult to just call that many places.”

“Even assuming they cooperate, you will be asking for records from more than two years ago. Even then, since the coffins were smuggled out of C2, there’s no guarantee they wouldn’t still be illicit cargo when they arrived,” Peudra said. “And… even if they were declared, the coffins themselves are nondescript metal boxes. It would be difficult to identify them without their contents.”

“You’re focusing too much on the coffins themselves,” I pointed out. “We don’t care about the boxes. We care about the bodies themselves.”

“Corpses turn heads,” Tasser nodded. “I doubt that stops being true on Kraknor.”

“We could talk to the local Organic Authority,” Jordan suggested.

Tox looked confused.

“Why’s that? I would expect anyone smuggling a Human corpse to avoid Org officials desperately.”

“Because accidents happen,” Jordan said. “What if a piece of the corpse broke off and someone found it? If any particle of the body is separated and someone tests it, they’re will be a record of non-Vorak DNA showing up on a test somewhere.”

“…Even if that idea turns up nothing, it’s still a good point,” Halax realized. “If the smugglers took precautions against that, it might help distinguish the cargo. Hermetically sealed containers are common in spaceflight, but relatively less so once you’re on the planet itself.”

Ugh.

Tox and Halax having good ideas was just about the only thing more annoying than bad ones.

“Then we need to pick our landing site,” I said. “Peudra, as far as I’m concerned, your recommendation is gold here. Where would you land first?”

“Here, undoubtedly,” they said, highlighting the port city Halax had indicated. “Huvatten. It’s not so much for tourists and has many of the facilities we’re interested in. Large Organic Authority office, a splash port, it even has the regional SHOBI law agency headquarters. We can ask them for records related to suspected smugglers.”

“Okay. I’m going to ask Serral too, but I’ll finalize our flight plan by tomorrow. We can launch then,” I said, getting up from my chair.

“Not to bother, but we’ve been waiting in the cargo hold for berth assignments on the Jackie Robinson,” Halax said. “When can we—”

“Keep waiting,” I said.

It was petty. I knew it.

But I was not above that.

“Oh, and Tox, you mentioned the blood of children? I had no idea you were bold enough to share the contents of your favorite breakfast. You can try asking the mess about it while you’re on board, but I should warn you the ship cook wanted to know how long a Vorak could survive in the walk-in-freezer. So—you know—‘at your own risk’ and all that.”

“Can we not be civil?” Halax tried, turning to my compatriots as I floated toward the door.

Sid and Jordan did me proud. Sharing only a glance, they immediately flipped Halax the bird and unbuckled themselves to float after me.

“This is his Flotilla,” Tasser grinned. “As the Humans say, ‘we know on which side our bread is [buttered]’.”

·····

Seeing Tox put me in a bad mood.

Seeing Nora’s Vorak buddy put me in a worse one.

I withdrew to my bunk on the Jack— quite possibly for the last time. In an effort to be helpful, Tasser had already boxed up some of my effects so they were ready to move to the captain’s quarters, but one thing in particular hadn’t moved.

There was a wall panel in the recess of my bunk, and it popped out a hair so you could pry it open but only if there wasn’t weight on the bunk itself.

It was the best hiding spot I had on the ship for the most dangerous piece of equipment in the entire Flotilla.

I pulled Kemon’s blackbox-laptop out of the hidden compartment and clicked a button on my handbook. The psionic signal from the handbook was matched by one from my own mind. Double authentication. Just one or the other was no good.

The blackbox shell popped open, letting me open the laptop itself.

More than anything else Halax had said today, his veiled reference to ENVY stuck with me. Dustin had told me just how problematic the AI was getting back in C2. Even civilian law enforcement was beginning to come across their automated drones in obscure places.

But in the last two years, the lot of them had all managed to keep a mostly low profile.

Mostly.

Dusting had gotten shot when Nora & Co. had poked around the wrong warehouse. ENVY and her siblings had access to drones that put even Earth robots to shame. Boston Dynamics’ robot hadn’t been ready to shoot a gun in a real battle.

But outside of a handful of violent confrontations, they were quiet.

Which wouldn’t have been outside expectations given what we continued to learn about CENSOR and ENVY.

But SPARK was the one I worried about.

I booted the laptop and started checking the inbox.

Ben and Shinshay had taken a look at the machine, both software and hardware. It was definitely alien built, but undoubtedly having studied human hardware. It certainly explained why there was ‘English’ as a display option.

Sadly the keyboard was stuck in the most popular Casti configuration: two series of concentric discs whose different values needed to be input like that on an old rotary phone.

I’d been checking this thing once a week for two years though. I was used to it.

Nothing jumped out to me.

‘BRIGHT EYES’ was my currently assigned username.

Not bad as far as past names went.

‘LIGHTBULB’

‘SOPHMORE’

‘SOCRATES’

SPARK liked to change my name on the system. For kicks apparently. I’d combed through them forwards and backwards for patterns or hidden messages, but nothing turned up. I think SPARK just liked prodding.

The first time Serral had taken a look, the name had been KEMON. I’d gotten this machine from the lawyer who could only have gotten it from SPARK. But the AI would know the box was in my hands now.

Since SPARK was the source of the box, I’d been worried that I wouldn’t be able to see anything useful—that he might be able to control what data my box received compared to all the others.

But luckily for me, ENVY had one trick up her sleeve that seemed to have gone unnoticed so far.

Because there were three extra accessible accounts on the machine.

One for CALEB. One for NORA. And one for NAI.

As far as I could tell, SPARK had no idea the accounts existed. The accounts very existence was the best hint we had that ENVY was doing her best to be an ally. SPARK had been beyond stingy with information on CENSOR, but two years of messages had made one thing clear.

CENSOR had admin privileges.

ENVY did not.

We’d deduced ENVY was forced to circumvent restrictions just to talk to us from the moment we’d met, but it had become clear that CENSOR was the one in control of those restrictions.

But despite the overbearing boss, ENVY still seemed determined to find ways to help us. She must have created the accounts for each of the three of us when we set foot on her satellite base.

And it was only because of those accounts that I had any idea how much SPARK was screwing with me on the other accounts.

For starters, just because my CALEB inbox was empty, didn’t mean I couldn't see any messages at all. No, whatever secret comm system ENVY’s creator had rigged for their clandestine little network, I could peek at the nearest workings.

Whatever system we were in, the CALEB account could at least see them being traded. I couldn’t always read the contents, and I could only see an assigned number to identify different senders, but I could see that much.

It was rather telling that, when we’d visited F2, there’d only been a dozen messages in a month. We’d been in V1 about as long now. More than a thousand had been traded in this system.

But Kemon’s old account couldn’t see any messages. The option to select the ‘MESSAGES’ utility wasn’t available when accessing the system from that account. But in a way, that was even more helpful.

It gave me a control to compare to.

It made it easier to see the ways SPARK was messing with me.

It was possible that the alternate accounts were entirely controlled by SPARK too, but I had to hope they really were from ENVY. Too much suggested it.

God, navigating these AI’s was the worst. We were completely in the dark on just how smart they were. They couldn’t be all -powerful. We were just a bit too successful poking around the edges of their operation for that to be the case.

But they still enjoyed practically unchallenged anonymity. The only thing we knew for certain was that they were restricted to hardware, and therefore could probably be destroyed. But only if we could find the physical machine itself.

The closest we’d gotten was ENVY back in C2, but we had no idea where SPARK might have gotten to. And we had no idea where CENSOR might have been in the first place.

That wasn’t even mentioning the overwhelming likelihood that there were even more siblings we were still unaware of.

Given how much more message traffic there was in this system…

What were the odds another sibling was already in this star system?

No…that was the wrong question. There was almost certainly a sibling in Margatha. The only question is whether or not they were going to stay hidden for the duration of our stay.

Tasser poked his head in.

“Oh hey. Anything interesting from the robots?”

“Not so much,” I said. “I’m considering talking to SPARK again though.”

“Mmm…that didn’t go so hot last time.”

No. It hadn’t.

Challenging SPARK to a game of my own had ended up with six Casti dead. We got a little too close for SPARK’s comfort and he’d blown up his exposed operatives to cut his losses. They’d been killed just because we were looking for them.

That was a sobering thought.

“The AIs aren’t the only ones with a network,” I said. “Suppose we had Jordan pearl a message to Michelle. She could at least make sure ENVY sees a message.”

“SPARK hates CENSOR and ENVY as much as he likes messing with us,” Tasser conceded. “You think we can avoid leads being blown up by warning them we’re coming? It’ll make them harder to find and catch.”

“Better than them blowing up,” I pointed out. “We can’t get anything from them if they’re dead.”

“…Could be worth a try,” Tasser ultimately conceded. “The warning won’t spread quickly though. If we run into someone on Kraknor, SPARK might get to them first.”

“I’d like to see him try,” I sighed, popping the laptop back into the box. It wasn’t until I resealed the lock on the blackbox that I relaxed.

“Think SPARK bought it?” Tasser asked.

“Dunno, but it’s worth rolling the dice,” I said. “SPARK can’t blow up every last one of his own agents. He’ll cripple himself doing that. Without ENVY or CENSOR to help him, he’d be doomed.”

As confident as I was that SPARK was unaware of the CALEB account, I also knew he could record snippets using the machine’s integrated mic and camera. It was why we kept the laptop in a soundproof blackbox—so he couldn’t listen in.

It was unclear exactly how often the microphone was on to record, but I was pretty sure SPARK would hear the chat Tasser and I had just arranged. Sooner or later.

We just had to hope that he made a mistake reacting to it. That was where we were right now with them: throw strange ideas at the wall and hope they stick.

“You’re the captain now,” Tasser observed. “Let me help you finish moving to the new cabin.”

“You’re the best roommate I ever had,” I said.

“You’re an only child,” Tasser laughed. “I’m the only roommate you’ve ever had.”

“Now why do you have to ruin a good moment with that?”

“Probably the same reason you needed to blow off giving Tox and Halax bunks.”

“This is supposed to be my ship, now, right? The least I can do is get territorial about it.”

“You really don’t like them? Either of them.”

“…No,” I said.

“Well Nemuleki should be more eager to come along,” Tasser said. “Just to keep an eye on the furfish. I don’t think she likes Peudra much.”

“Peudra grows on you a lot once you know where they come from,” I said. “Besides, they’ve helped us out enough for me to start trusting them.”

“I didn’t realize you knew where Peudra comes from,” Tasser said.

“It’s a new development, I’ll admit,” I said. “But you know they have an angle for all this, right? Sending us to Kraknor, now? Specifically, I mean?”

“You figured out what that angle is?”

“Serral did. It’s…impressive.”

“Can you share yet?”

“…Yeah. The broad strokes. Don’t go talking about it aloud though.”

“Spill then.”

I grinned. Despite how stiff and formal Peudra could be, they were something of a kindred spirit. They liked wild grand ideas, long shots that, in any other hands, would be sure to fail. And Peudra had found the longest shot of them all.

I leaned closer, conspiratorially, and swapped to the most secure psionic channel Tasser and I shared. Just for good measure.

<…And you intend to help them,> Tasser observed.

I said.

Tasser followed.

I wagged my eyebrows at him, bragging a little bit.

He grinned.