Episode Fifty-Nine, in which Linda shows her colors and Bael encounters yet another cousin

The room’s door opened with a bang. Two of the Captain’s men stumbled in, followed hard on their heels by a half-dozen heavily armed and armored fighters. These quickly spread into the room. One of them demanded that we surrender any weapons, and the rest prodded us with the tips of their flashguns. O’Flaherty’s group slowly dropped their weapons. The rest of us had none, at least, none that we could produce and drop on the floor.

A heavyset woman appeared at the door. It was Linda Aphrodite Jones.

She carried no weapon, but two of her black-clad fighters stood by her side.

“Hello, everyone,” she said. “Kindness, I apologize for coming into your home unbidden. I know what that means for a Trinn. But you may have forgotten, you gave me rights to your home a long time ago. What did you call it? Tandrydoon? Don’t worry; we won’t be here long.”

Kindness said nothing; he just sat there watching Linda. The old Trinn seemed bewildered by the successive invasions of his house. I guessed that he would have liked to be back in his simulation.

“And Empress. Or I guess I’d better call you Captain O’Flaherty, though I wonder if you’re really part of the Royal Court of Chance. So much lying these days.”

O’Flaherty also said nothing. I figured that she was having plant chatter with her crew; Linda did not seem to have blocked the plants. But to what effect, I could not tell.

“Dear Kli, please continue. I’m very interested in what you were about to say. Though I might have wished that you’d told me first. After all, I am paying you for this work. Come now, please go ahead.”

The fragen bared his teeth, moving his head back and forth so that his ear weights clicked as they hit each other. He looked around at all of us.

“Everywhere I turn,” he said finally, “I see new members to these families of yours. I had never thought you humans had a problem with losing your offspring, but you people certainly do. And Linda Aphrodite Jones, you certainly do have a problem. You should be glad you and your siblings don’t have more children, or pseudo-children. They certainly delight in trying to kill you.

“Elibel and Bael, meet your cousin. Or I guess maybe he’s your uncle. He’s resting right now, but when he awakes, I’m sure that he will be happy to meet you.”

“I knew it!” Linda cried. “I could see it in his face. He tried to kill me?”

“Not directly, but when your flyer went down in the waters off Government House, the thugs who got to you and sent you off in the flyer were Johnny’s people. His DNA was so close to yours, it let them figure out how to override the security ID and get him and his people inside. That’s how they got into your corner of Government House in the first place.”

“He’s a copy,” I said, “isn’t he?”

“Yea,” she said obviously excited, “though obviously he was modified. He doesn’t look like me at all.”

Everyone else was quiet. Both sets of guards, the Captain’s and Linda’s, were eyeing each other, watching for something coming from the other. Bael seemed bemused by her ever-growing family.

“How did you lose your copy?”

“She…,” Kli said.

“Go on, Kliostaff. You know more about this than I do.”

“She never knew for sure that Johnny existed. But she guessed that there might be a copy around; that was the only way anyone could figure that security had been breached at Government House. She didn’t tell me directly, but I soon figured out that she was looking for a copy.”

“How did you find out it’s it’s Johnny?”

“We could do a test now, if you like. But it’s not necessary. I traced him back to the time before he was Enrique Dermatt. Eventually I got to a research station on Olekin 4. That’s where he grew up. The station was run by a bio-for-hire outfit. That bunch still exists, by the way, and is controlled by Gregen Kappten. If you recall, Kappten is in thick with Melissa Bean.”

“So then…?”

“The records I’ve found show that Bean had a boy in that little school for girls she ran. Rosalind, do you remember him?”

“That was Johnny?” she exclaimed. “That kid was a silly little fool….”

“Sure, but he was your Johnny. Bean only had him for a little while. She tried to send him to Giorgio Sprocket—the Schoolmaster, you know him, I believe—but the Schoolmaster refused to take him. So he ended up with a group of traveling tutors in the employ of Gregen Kappten. Here is where it get’s interesting.”

“Why?”

“Johnny, Enrique—his name was Attempt 17 at that point—traveled across explored space for ten years. He was the tutors’ only pupil; Kappten put a lot of lucre into Johnny’s education. Some stays would be brief, a visit to some artifact, a historical marker, a famous building, a natural wonder. Other stays would be longer, maybe a whole cycle with a famous mathemagican. Once they spent a winter on Tyril, hunting tigers. Another time they had a long stay on Chis with the ant people. These were not the sort of tutors that you might find in the cloisters on University. They were tough, and mean, and smart. Johnny grew up tough and mean and smart. Then they went to Trinn, and all that changed.”

“Taes?”

“Not at first. Bael, you may remember Johnny as well. Your father took you to learn a bit from the well-dressed Master Smith, did he not?”

“Yea. But…you’re not talking about Foosta, the boy who worked for Smith? He was so quiet.”

“Quiet, yes, but focused on learning all that he could from Smith about the arts of persuasion and deception. He was doing just that; as I understand it, Bael, you were a just casual student, but Johnny was a fanatic. And then Taes learned about the boy. He dug around as I’ve been doing; fortunately, he left traces. Eventually he figured out that Johnny was being groomed to be not just one of Melissa’s minions, but an exceptional force in her array, and ultimately the assassin of Linda Aphrodite Jones. Taes knew Smith quite well, and worked to get closer to the boy. It was about that time that Johnny’s three tutors began to die.”

“Murdered? I asked.

“Of course.”

“So Taes became Johnny’s mentor?” Bael asked.

“By that point, no one was Johnny’s mentor. The boy was on his own. He and Taes became closer, though, more as allies in the belief that they were smarter than anyone else. You know about about the clone perspective problem?”

“Human copies tend toward madness,” the Captain said, a tinge of bored frustration in her voice, as though she were quoting from a datadump. “Even when they don’t know they’re copies, most of them exhibit a total lack of perspective as to who they are. They begin to get a sense that they are uniquely superior. They may be reared with a bend toward total humility, as with the koolas monks, but still that pervasive idea grows in their heads. Sometimes that sense of superiority can be controlled and contained as straightforward arrogance—not pleasant, but not especially harmful. But most times, they go mad.”

“Yea, thanks, and so….” Kli said.

“Why it happens, nobody’s been able to tell,” she continued. “Breeders have tried to get rid of the trait, but with no luck. For a while, it was theorized that gestation outside of the womb was the cause, but research on non-copy tank babies put that one to rest. Some theologians suggest that the copy babies are born without a spirit essence, what they call a soul. In the end, nobody knows. Is that correct?”

“Yea,” Kli said. “That’s why human copies are so rare. In Johnny’s case, his breeders had hoped to channel the problem into arrogance, which they thought they could control. But meeting Taes changed all that. And the problem with Johnny was that he is very smart, and his education has been superb.”

“We suspected that Johnny was a copy,” O’Flaherty said, taking a deep and deliberate sip of her brandy. “But we had no idea who the original was, and why. Kliostaff, have your investigations shown why Johnny’s people wanted to kill Linda?”

“No. They had already neutralized her in the skuffle with the Brec faction. A lot of people don’t like Linda, No offense, facilitator….”

“None taken. It’s certainly a fact. Go on.”

“There’s not too much more to say. Maybe they did it for sport.”

“Kli,” I said, “have you found out anything more about Taes, and what Breslaft has been up to, exactly? And Linda, I really need to know: Why did you burst in here, waving weapons?”

“Why do you think?” The voice came from behind me. It was Johnny. I sprang up, but one of Linda’s guards was already next to him. Johnny was still bound, spawled across a couch. He struggled to sit up.

“She wants my help, and unless I miss my guess, she’s willing to pay for it.”

“Help?”

“Our dear Facilitator wants to take back power on Forest. But she won’t be the Facilitator, she’ll create a new role for herself. I’ve heard it will be Provisional Coordinator for Consortium Stability, or something like that. But she’ll be in control, control like the consortium or any of the other entities have never seen. She’ll be willing to offer me a lot, and maybe she’ll even appeal to family loyalty. I know she’ll figure that she knows my weak points. She is a fool. Can somebody loosen these bonds a little? They are wicked tight.”

“Nobody touch him,” Linda said. “Well, Billy, or Enrique, or Rohit, or Johnny, or Barr of Picalle—you sure do love to change identities, don’t you, my little copy—I’d lost touch with you after Melissa brought you to me all those years ago. You were such a lovely little boy in those days, and our time together was too short. Yes, you are correct, I wanted to rescue him. But not to help me regain power. I want to help him.”

“Help me? That’s….”

“Yes, Johnny. I know a way to reverse what’s happening to you. I can….”

“Nothing’s happening to me. At least not if someone doesn’t loosen these damned bonds.”

The captain stood up, looked at Linda, then walked over to Johnny and tweaked the power levels on his constraints. Then she turned and raised her hand.

“Don’t try it,” Linda said, as O’Flaherty froze in mid-motion. “I know about that plant of yours. Johnny, you and I….”

With a flash, one wall of the room dissolved, and a rush of cold, wet, night air filled the room. The break was filled with more black-clad fighters, followed by three huge gold monkeys. The fighters all had big flashguns, and as they leapt into the room, they began firing. I fell behind one of the couches, and as I did, I could see that a flash burst had seared Bael’s side.

To Be Continued

Episode Fifty-Eight, in which Hare goes to Bael’s assistance and discovers that the Captain has untold secrets

“Hare, they’re gone,” Bael said. “There’s no one here.”

“The flyers?” I asked.

“They’re still here. But they’re empty. No sign of struggle; they’re just floating here, empty. The Willi frame is gone as well.”

“Kral? Kli?”

Nothing.

“Get back here, Bael, now. Ship, what did you see?”

Silence at first, then, “Sorry, Hare, I’m still pulling myself together. Both Willi and Johnny took a lot out of me. I can bring a spacecraft into jump without a second thought, but running Willi and doing witchcraft on Johnny….”

“Ship….”

“Oh, yea. Let me review the visuals. Here, I’ll attach you.”

I could see the flyers, suspended as they were in the dark void behind the big image screens. But just barely, and only because I knew they were there. Kli had been sending out obfuscations, and he was good at it. I could make out Bael and me leaving with the Captain and Elibel, climbing down the screen frames. Then, not much as ship speeded the display. Ship pulled back the view, and I could see two enforcer flyers coming up near the screens.

There was a flash, then the visuals went white. Kli or the enforcers had upped the obfuscation.

“Any other spectra, Ship?”

“No, Hare. I can’t read anything. Infrared, even neutrino trace. Nothing.”

“I don’t think that’s Kli’s work; he doesn’t have the generators.”

“I’m broadening my look at the neighborhood. Maybe I can see something.”

“Bael?” I asked.

“I’m in the alley, Hare. I’ll be there in a moment.”

“Hare! In the alley. I can use a little help. Now.”

“Coming,”

“Elibel, stay here and watch these two. Captain, come with me.”

We were out the back door to find the alley quiet and empty. I ran for the nearest large street. Then I heard it, coming from the blackness of a small courtyard that led off the alley.

“You’re an off-worlder, aren’t you? You look Benzal….”

“No, she doesn’t. You can tell she’s Trinn. But she doesn’t look….”

“Be quiet, you two!” came a third voice in a loud whisper. “I think she must have some lucre or some passes or some credit slips or something. Who wants to check her out?”

They had surrounded her, four of them. She stood tall in the center, relaxed but wary. I would have wagered a Tyrillian grinich on her ability to handle them, but each held a large flashgun pointed at her, and one, the fellow who had demanded quiet, held a very nasty looking audio burner.

“I’m going to see if I can talk us out,” I said. “But if not, watch for my signal.”

“Excuse me,” I said. “Excuse me. We seem to have lost our way. Can you tell us…oh.”

The audio burner guy turned and looked at us. He was the largest of the four, with a scar that cut into his lower lip and pushed his mouth into a snarl. He cocked an eyebrow, brought the burner around to face us, and came toward us, moving with a limping swagger. His left eye moved up and down as he took us in, seemingly independent of the other.

“And who do we have here?” he said. He brought up the burner’s fat cold tip, and held it under my chin.

“We’re….”

“Let’s cut to the chase, Trieste,” he said. “You probably have not noticed, but we have a friend on that rooftop over there, with a pinpoint covering us all.”

I could see the dark figure now, crouched on the roof’s edge behind him.

“I don’t want to stay out here too long. Your host’s obfuscators covering this alley are good, but you never know who will happen along for a close-up view.”

“Who…?”

“Enough time for that later. I didn’t want to have to invade the Trinn house; it’s too well defended. I knew you’d come out if your friend here were in trouble. And so you did. Now we’re all going in together.”

“Do as he says?” Bael asked.

“I suppose so. We’ll just have to see what develops.”

The pinpoint shooter dropped from the roof to join us, a young woman clad in light armor. The man with the burner motioned us down the alley. I unlocked Kindness’s back gate, and we went inside. Our captor’s companions sped around us to fan out into the house, and before we’d reached the top of the stair, they’d reappeared. One held Kindness by the arm. Kindness looked startled but calm. We all funneled into the guest suite. Weapons were everywhere.

“As you requested, Captain,” the fellow with the burner said. His demeanor had changed. The limp was gone, as was the snarl. His stance was more erect, and his eyes seemed coldly clear.

“Thank you, Lieutenant,” the Captain said. “You always come through. I will take over now. Please sit down.” She gestured to us.

The door to the suite opened and a man and woman with weapons came in, followed by Basto, Rosalind, Kli, and Kral. Kral was carrying Johnny and Melissa, and the Willi frame. Two more of O’Flaherty’s men followed. She gestured for the newcomers to sit on nearby couches, while the guards arrayed themselves behind. Basto looked at me blankly; Kral seemed somewhere far away. The room was getting crowded.

She crossed the room to look at Johnny and Melissa. Both were bound; both were still out but seemed on the verge of coming around. O’Flaherty stood tall over the two slouching figures, her flimsy dress now worn and a little tattered. She rubbed her hand back across her shaved pate, and then put her finger to her mouth, as if in deep thought. She reached down and cupped her hand around Dermatt’s chin.

“Oh, Enrique, you look so peaceful and so handsome. I wanted to wait, but these people have forced my hand. I guess that’s for the best.” She dropped his head with such vigor that it nearly bounced against the wall. Then she stroked Melissa’s chin. “And my dear Melissa. I’ve been waiting to give you what you deserve.” She cuffed the side of Melissa’s head so that it bounced against Johnny’s. Then she turned to us.

“I have nothing against you and your people, Trieste. But you were taking too damned long, running around Forest battling enforcers. It became apparent to me that you all were in over your heads, so I called in some of my people. The Court of Chance, what’s left of it, has a lot of good people on Forest.”

“Plans?” Bael asked.

“None at this point. Let’s hear what she has to say.”

“Hare!” It was Ship. “Barnacles are attaching themselves to Largo’s hull. They’re not trying to get in, but they’ll be laying down a blanket soon. I’m trying to….”

Just then, Willi groaned. Her eyes fluttered open. Kral, who’d been holding the lifeless figure, put her gently on the couch.

“I’m glad you’ve rejoined us, Ship,” O’Flaherty said. “Have no fear. The Court of Chance has no designs on your Largo. But we want her immobilized and isolated until this little adventure is over.”

“What little adventure is that, exactly, Captain?” Bael asked.

The Captain walked over to a cupboard and picked up a bottle of pear brandy and a few glasses. She brought them to the low table in front of us. I poured a glass for Bael and one for myself. The Captain poured one for herself. No one else touched the bottle. O’Flaherty folded herself into a big chair.

“I could have killed this guy several times,” she said. “I’ve wondered if he half expected his Empress Emanuelle to try. But I wanted to wait. He and his people destroyed the Royal Court of Chance. For centuries, Chance had a mature, stable, and exciting culture. The whole planet was a garden filled with art, poetry, science, and the best technology. It was a wonderful place to be a part of, and to just be. Now the planet can barely feed its people, and chaos rules. The Court is scattered, its members in exile or dead.

“I know that Dermatt’s crowd has been destabilizing worlds across human space for some time now. But from what I can tell, they’ve been doing so for profit and power. On Chance, they did it for sport.

“So I could have killed this guy, but I didn’t. I needed to find out who he was working with. And I needed to find his relationship with Bresslaft. Yes, Bael, we know that your father is Bresslaft. But we’re still not sure about Bresslaft’s role in all this.

“But I want to know what you know about our Enrique. Tell me.” She sipped her brandy.

I gave her a summary of what the Schoolmaster and Linda had told us. I figured it couldn’t hurt.

“Do you know what he’s doing on Forest?”

“We think he has a hand in Melissa Bean’s fudge trade, but we also have word that he’s into something a lot bigger.”

“What?”

“We don’t know. Something dangerous and huge. That’s about it.”

“Hare,” Kli said, “there’s something I need to tell you about Johnny. I discovered it working for Linda. She’s been having me research her, but it turns out that I’ve been really researching Johnny. I….”

The room’s door opened with a bang. Two of the Captain’s men stumbled in, followed hard on their heels by a half-dozen heavily armed and armored fighters. These quickly spread into the room. One of them demanded that we surrender any weapons, and the rest prodded us with the tips of their flashguns. O’Flahery’s group slowly dropped their weapons. The rest of us had none, at least, none that we could produce and drop on the floor.

A large, heavyset woman appeared at the door. It was Linda Aphrodite Jones.

To Be Continued

Episode Fifty-Seven, in which help comes with kindness and a strange doll reappears

“Trouble,’ I said. “Five armed flyers….”

“Drop us and let me out, now!” Captain O’Flaherty shouted, opening the flyer lid as we dropped. “Stay where you are. I will take care of this.”

She disappeared around the edge of the cote. No sign of the flyers, yet.

“Basto, report?”

“Eluding pursuers, Hare. Kli’s been confusing them. We’ll head for number three when….”

“Hold, Basto. I’ll get back to you.”

We could see the flyers now, coming in fast but not bringing in any fire. Then without warning, they stopped, as if they had met an invisible wall. They hovered about half a klick toward the sea, as though waiting for something.

“I’ve been scanning channels, Hare,” Kli said, “and there’s no chatter about those flyers, unless it’s happening in places I’ve never seen. Jones gave me universal access.”

The Captain came around the corner. “I told you my implant’s good. The Royal Guards of Chance don’t like to leave much to…chance.”

“The flyers…?”

“Are immobile, without communication or weapons. They’ll stay like that until we release them.”

“I’ve seen something like that before,” I said. “Can you do the same thing to a group of craft? They’re pursuing….”

“Already done,” she said.

“Hare, we should move,” Bael said. “I still can’t raise Louis.”

“Basto, change of plan. Come here as fast as you can. I wish I had passthrough for these boats, but we don’t. When you’re close, we’ll move.”

“I can construct something like passthrough, Hare,” Kli said. “It will take a little work, essentially confusing every sensor that catches us, so that we become effectively undetectable.”

“How long?”

“A while. I’ll work on it.”

We waited in silence, Johnny and Melissa still out. Soon Basto’s craft showed up, hovering above. We lifted and headed toward the peak.

“I’m thinking we forget rendezvous three,” I said to Bael on our channel.

“So where?’”

“Down. Into the night markets. The storm has let up, and you can see, the streets have begun to fill. We’ll hide in plain sight.”

“Any suggestions as to a good landing spot?”

“We’re not landing. Go down by those big image screens and pull behind them.”

The screens loomed huge ahead of us. A pair of enhanced pigs, gigantic on the screen, were waltzing on a beach, waves breaking in the background, the sky pale yellow. Bael deftly swung around the endmost screen; Basto was right behind us. The screens stood out from a big wall that rose above one of the markets, and the space between was dark and empty. We hovered, tethered to the frame of one of the screens. Basto was behind us.

“Kral, can you carry Johnny and Melissa and climb down the screen?”

“Yea.Justiketakingmycubsintothepitoffire.”

I didn’t ask why one would take one’s cubs into a pit of fire.

“Kli, how’s that rough-made passthrough?”

“Not enough time, Hare. But as long as we keep the flyers back here, I can confuse any passing sensors. They’d have to fall over us before they knew we were here.”

“All right. Everyone, I admit that I don’t have much of a plan, but I’m thinking that our rendezvous spots are probably compromised. We don’t know where Louis is, and I don’t know if we can expect that he’ll be back. I’m wondering….”

“He’ll be back,” Elibel said. “I may hate him with every bit of my soul, but he’s an honorable guy. He’ll be back.”

“Maybe. We need to talk, Elibel.

“Anyway, my basic plan is to get out in the crowd below and find a place where we can set up a base so we can bring these two around and get on with this.”

“Can’t we just stay here?” Basto asked.

“The moment they wake, they’ll know we’re on the run, even if Kli jams their plants. We need a good, secluded spot. Bael and Elibel will come with me. We’ll be back soon. And for now, don’t use any comm, even your plants.”

Kral stood quietly in the open flyer, Johnny and Melissa flouncing like cloth dolls around them. Basto and Rosalind were in the other. Her hand was tight on his shoulder.

“I’d better come along.”

“Captain….”

“I have a few talents, Trieste. I think you may need them. I’m coming.”

“Suit yourself.”

The streets and squares below were packed, mostly with humans wandering across wet pavement, filtering through the narrow alleys between the market stalls. Lanterns at each stall created little islands of warmth in the dark damp night, with the stalls hustling everything from fraestian jewelry to the hairy snakes of Burgin’s Star.

We made our way through the crowds, moving quickly but seemingly without purpose. I’d pulled up some of the hotels in the neighborhood, but none met our needs.

“What?” Bael had stopped. She was staring at a small building. She began to walk toward it.

“Bael?”

“It’s Trinn. The sign above the door, it’s the crest one of the oldest families on Trinn. They’re my father’s cousins. I didn’t know any of them were here.”

“Should we be…?”

“Come on. I need to find out who this is.”

We mounted a steep stair, and Bael pressed the call panel.

“Yes?” A well-dressed holo figure, an older, self-assured man, appeared in front of the door.

“Hello, Kindness,” Bael said.

“Baelyae?”

“Yea, Kindness, it’s me. Can we come in?”

“Of course.”

Inside we found a lush green field of wildflowers, with a waterfall cascading over lichen-covered rocks into a small pond. Bright sunlight bathed the scene. A four-legged equine animal, a bit like a horse but with a mottled blue and red hide and a long spiked neck, drank from the pond. A Trinn male came from around the rocks. It was Kindness. He was smaller than his holo, and rather than the elaborate embroidered red jacket he’d had in the door holo, he wore an old white robe and a wide brown hat. A long staff completed his outfit. His face was darker than hers, but with similarly huge gold eyes. A small but obviously powerful receptor was affixed to his temple, just above his left ear, worn like a jewel.

He came over to us and enthusiastically hugged Bael. The two of them exchanged Trinn hand signals and each touched the other’s face. Bael explained our need for a refuge.

“Of course,” he said.  “I’ve just been having a stroll. I miss Trinn, and I like to spend as much time in this replica as I can. Come with me.”

He waved a hand and a door appeared before us. On the other side, a hallway led to a stair. Down the stair another passage led to a suite, with three sleeping rooms, a comfort room, and a washing room and a small kitchen.

“This should meet your needs, I hope.”

We agreed that it would.

“It is, of course, shielded and obfuscated in every way possible.” He showed us a back entrance that led to a small alley behind the house.

“Bring your companions in this way. It will be more discreet. And the alley is not monitored. I make sure of that.” Bael spoke with him for a moment. A sad look crossed his face, then he went up the stairs, with an assurance that we should let him know if we needed anything.

I took Bael aside. “He has no word of your father?”

“No,” she said. “Nothing at all.”

“Can you get the others?” I asked. “I want to keep the captain with me, and I think it’s time for me to talk with Elibel.”

“Yea. I won’t use the plant to talk unless absolutely necessary.”

“Understood. I’d guess that our channels are secure, but no use in taking chances.”

I cupped her cheek in my hand.

“Be careful,” I said. “We have no idea who knows what at this point, or how close the enforcers are.”

She took my face in her hand and kissed my cheek, and then she was gone.

“Elibel,” I said. “Let’s talk. What did you find?”

She had wearily sat in one of the big chairs. She’s been upping her adrenalin and pressing her reflexes, and it showed. She reached into her pouch and pulled out an old-fashioned book, Moby Dick. There were no notes, but words throughout were underlined, and many had numbers marked above them.

“I didn’t know what this was,” Elibel said, “but it looked important.”

“I don’t know, either. Maybe Kli….”

“It’s an ancient book code, a way of communicating secretly,” the Captain said. “Both people in the communication have the book, and one communicates the location of specific words to the other. A fast AI can break the code by analyzing the texts and editions of millions of books to find the right one, but that requires that a third party knows the code exists in the first place. That can be easily disguised. I’ll work with your Kli when he comes to see if we can figure this out.”

“What else, Elibel?’”

“I have a data dump that I can give you in a moment. There’s one other thing. When I was in Johnny’s back room, I found this.”

She pulled a small figure out of her bag. It was little doll, with drooping eyes and long ears. It was the same doll Enrique had been holding in his image. And it was exactly like the figure that Louis had put in the snow on Paradox, except that the chest featured a crescent, rather than a star. This was, Linda had said, a talisman of power among what she called the ringmasters. With all that had happened, I’d not found a chance to ask Louis what he was doing with one, or why he’d put it in the snow.

“Was there…?”

“Hare, they’re gone,” Bael said. “There’s no one here.”

To Be Continued