Daemon E-Book

R. A. Smith

• Herausgeber: BookRix
• Kategorie: Fantasy und Science-Fiction
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2020

Beschreibung

The interstellar cargo ship Auliss, its captain and crew find themselves drawn into the passage wind of two travelers with compelling purpose, into events which might very well reshape humanity’s future.

Quillia, a cyber-enhanced Centrus Corrector, had spent millennia taking action to move communities and whole worlds away from chaos.  She profoundly believed in her work and was embedded so deep in duty she knew no other life.

And then there was Chance, contracted to be on the ship, apparently a child of seven but obviously a good deal more than that. She evidenced a purpose everyone on the Auliss could sense but she kept it hidden.

Encountering Chance was just the beginning. Nothing about their lives was what it seemed, and they discovered forces at play which threatened the ship, its people and even humanity itself. 

None of them could foresee all the consequences let alone the appalling price of preventing catastrophe and releasing humanity to choose its own destiny.

Their time together and their journeys from star to star form an unforgettable tale which will keep you in its grip right to the end. 

Leseprobe

R. A. Smith

Daemon

To my sister, my daughter and my wife, all three of whom are incredible women who inspire me every day.BookRix GmbH & Co. KG81371 Munich

Prologue

The Auliss had been on quarantine at dock on Dabrean for three full days of the four required, the air-borne nanites doing their work to destroy any bacterium or virus that might be a threat to the planet. Jonathan Holden Park, the Auliss’ Captain, was sitting at his desk, altogether too aware of the cost of sitting there, his eight crew members being paid astronomical rates for doing no more than minor repair and clean-up.

The best that might be said was that the cargo they were to pick up and deliver would cover costs plus repairs on one of his other two ships. The run of bad luck that had side-lined the Amariss and Aletheia might just be changing, but he doubted it. The crews he could afford had botched their job of keeping the ships in good working order, a situation that was not going to change just because he’d got one of them running again. The situation had got so bad he’d gone back to Captaining to save costs and ensure his one good ship stayed that way.

He was morosely contemplating selling one to afford repairs and a better crew when the comm-tech console beeped.

“Captain” said the comm-tech. “Message for you, to your console.”

He sat up and saw it was a priority message from Centrus. He stabbed Enable and read what was on the screen.

His jaw dropped. His luck, if anything, had just got worse. Centrus was commandeering his ship to take a Corrector to Wastril, a planet every ship in the sector tried to avoid. While the planet did provide much of the produce that three other planets needed to survive, the only ships that could profit from the small revenues possible were SC1 class, and they only plied the route because they’d receive a Centrus directive to do so.

Centrus paid travel rates for Corrector travel, never compensating for the loss of business. Theoretically, cargo ships could easily handle a passenger along with their regular cargo but not always, and for Park this was seriously worse. The one advantage small ships like his had over big ones was transit time and the cargo he’d agreed to carry had to get to destination as quickly as possible. He could no longer take that cargo. Carrying anything else to or from Wastril would cost more than he’d get, which meant he was going to lose money on a trip at exactly the wrong moment.

Thinking about it, he got to drumming his fingers on the console edge, a bad habit that always got the attention of the bridge crew. Ignoring the questions he’d accidentally triggered, he sent an acknowledge, then carefully began to word a message to the client explaining his situation. As bad as Centrus commandeering his ship was, he couldn’t afford the fine impose for welching on an Agreement to Ship.

Finished, he hit send and leaned back to consider why a Corrector would be going to such an out of the way planet.

The comm console beeped again. “To me” he said immediately. The turnaround was far too fast for it to be from the client. Suspicious, he hit Enable again.

A new shipping request, and to Wastril at that. Not believing his luck he began to read.

Half-way through the message, his jaw dropped. He’d get paid easily enough dinarae to repair all his ships, hire excellent crew, and even purchase an SC3 or perhaps even an SC2 that needed a little repair! The amount was staggeringly beyond extravagant.

Which, he well knew, meant there was a catch. Maybe illicit, maybe high-risk content. Who knew? He started again at the beginning and carefully read the whole thing through.

Stunned, he sat back again and ran fingers over his bare pate. A child. He was being offered a cargo contract, and it was a child. Take her to the next stop where-ever that happened to be and drop her off there. No one to pick up, just… let her go.

It made no sense. Technically there wasn’t an issue provided he had correct and up to date documentation, though the concept of just dumping a child at the other end bothered him quite a bit.

He was about to write a message requesting documentation and information on why no pick-up at destination when the comm-console console beeped again, announcing yet a third message.

He said “To me” and hit Enable when the message appeared. This message had an attachment and indicated that, for the money involved, no questions were to be asked.

He popped the documentation open, to find that the girl was an orphan being relocated by Centrus.

Twice in one day? Ships had gone through their entire hundred fifty-year lifespan without a single Centrus contract. Could not possibly be coincidence.

Hearing sucked-in air behind him, he looked around to find his entire crew on the bridge, crowded around, reading over his shoulder.

“Alright you all” he told them, cross with himself for not guarding against just such a probability. “Full review of stats and specs, check data storage for corruption and then do a complete restore of software from Hard Storage. Once done that, test functionality of all elements. Off-shift stand behind on-shift and ensure that every step needed is taken and that there are no mistakes. Screw this up and you’re not leaving this planet.”

They were angry and not in a mood, he could tell. “Screw this up and we might never get planet-side again! Got it?”

They grumbled, but they went to work regardless. Watching them he wished, profoundly wished he could hire a crew he could trust. This bunch was useless to the point of dangerous.

He checked the timer. Six and three quarters standard hours to go before quarantine would be lifted. He badly wanted to go back to his cabin to think but he couldn’t afford to let this crew screw up. Not this time. They just had to make this trip pay, which meant getting there without having to be rescued from a broke down ship.

While he watched them, though, he couldn’t help but do some thinking. Broke and amenable to taking sketchy jobs, which the shipping contract certainly smelled like.

Centrus, though, was highly unlikely to set up a sketchy job. Concerned, he went back to his console and read the second message again, remembering that something had tugged at his attention.

The word “deliver” was missing the ‘i’.

Centrus never, ever made mistakes. Ever. Which meant this message wasn’t from Centrus, which probably meant that Centrus wasn’t relocating the child. He was being given enough money to ignore the anomalous request and he was in no position to refuse. Something was seriously up but he had no way of finding out without jeopardizing the dinarae he so desperately needed.

On a thought, he started to draft a message requesting a Health Certificate for the child on the chance he was being asked to deliver a plague. As he was drafting the comm console beeped once again, causing the entire crew to stop what they were doing to stare, as well they might. This many messages in this short a time was… well, it never happened.

“To me, then back to work” he ordered, though not unkindly. He enabled the message, to find the Health Certificate exactly as he was going to request.

A chill went up the back of his spine and right across his scalp.

A thought crossed his mind. He dismissed it, but then he was about to have more money than he knew what to do with, so why not?

He slaved the comm console to his, patched the ship into the planetary web and searched for a tracer bot, aiming for the most expensive one and grimacing at the price when he found it. Under normal circumstances he’d never put this much dinarae into checking on a client but this was, no question about it, a special case.

He bought it and ran it against the message, and discovered he’d wasted his dinarae. The data was not in the least hidden. Assern Shipping and Compliance, a member of the Draid Consortium. They were a local concern, shipping in-system so they had to be a beard company, contracting him on behalf of someone else.

He sat back and thought. It wasn’t unusual for a shipper to conceal its identity through a third party, particularly given the caustic competitive environment shippers worked within, and even a program this good couldn’t trace through what the Draid Consortium could afford to complicate. Concealing the extent and nature of their work helped them avoid contract jumpers, willing to offer better terms for a commitment to repeat business.

Still, the subterfuge made him uneasy. He weighed demanding the identity of the original shipper against demanding a hefty up-front deposit on signing and decided on the latter since the former wasn’t going to get him anywhere and might cost him the contract. He put fingers to keyboard, and the console beeped yet again, this time right in front of him because the comm one was slaved.

Perturbed, he enabled the message to find an Agreement to Ship along with a draft for half the amount, along with a message requiring that the amount be repaid if he decided not to sign.

He opened the Agreement and discovered that his expensive bot was correct. He was being engaged by Assern Shipping and Compliance, a member of the Draid Consortium.

He promptly attached his insignia, sent the Agreement and deposited the draft into his coffer account. His hands were shaking the entire time.

Corrector

Quillia hiked her duffel up onto her shoulder and strode swiftly down the long length of the terminal, her short-cropped earth-brown hair bouncing about her collar. Seeing her coming, people whispered to one another, pulled their children off to one side, glared and sometimes ran pell-mell away from her, the last usually but not always a sign of guilt.

She was a striking figure given her above-average height and solid frame but what was attracting serious attention was her sharply cut Centrus Corrector uniform: black wool thigh-length jacket tightly fit over buttoned up red shirt, stove-pipe black pants with red piping, black spacer-boots with red crepe soles. She was used to the attention, not exactly oblivious to stares and comments but certainly indifferent.

Her destination, the Auliss, was at Cargo Bay Twelve, a bit further past the end of the long rather spare, utilitarian concourse colourfully punctuated with shuttle bay counters. The concourse was otherwise populated on one side by food and good stalls, in between with ranks of pale green plasalume benches that people could really only sit on for so long, and on the other by glass that showed little more than parking lots and an entirely drab cityscape. The terminal was, in fact, a perfect reflection of the planet’s GDP.

She could have had the cab drop her closer but she’d been stuck in an SC2 cargo ship making the transit from Hearth to Dabrean, cooped up in seriously cramped quarters for nineteen days and then a further four in quarantine. She’d been unable to step out even for a moment, all because the Captain was pissed at having to divert.

What she did not understand was why Centrus had dumped her here on Dabrean when the ultimate destination was Wastril.

Centrus never answered such questions, this being the one aspect of Centrus that bothered her. Otherwise, she entirely believed in Centrus, was in fact the loyal Corrector she was supposed to be, doing exactly as commanded. She loved order and she loved the opportunity to bring things into line with the way they were supposed to be. Her service was more than adequately rewarded through the satisfaction of seeing entire worlds redirected from paths that led to chaos.

The ability to commandeer whatever she might need was certainly a bonus but not really a personal benefit. She wasn’t interested in ownership beyond what she carried in her duffel. She wasn’t interested in travel because her work took her everywhere anyway. She most certainly wasn’t interested in settling down anywhere with anyone.

Solitude and self-reliance were her watchwords, her guiding principles. Her connection to the world was through her work and what it accomplished. Time off between Corrections allowed her recreations her salary was more than enough to cover. What was there to commandeer, then, except that which helped her get her work done?

She got to the end of the concourse, threaded her way through back corridors and arrived at Bay Twelve to discover its massive blast-gate closed, the display board nearby showing about a quarter hour left before quarantine ended.

She was seriously restless, cramped and tight in spite of the long walk. She dropped her duffel, removed her jacket and began exercising, stretching out muscles disused to the effort, working against the planet’s one point three standard G which was giving her an appreciated additional challenge.

She never relented, forcing herself through her usual routine in spite of muscular complaint.

“Hello.”

In the midst of a host of sit-ups, Quillia turned a bit to find a bare-foot young girl in a simple white frock, looking hardly more than seven if that. Meter and a third height. Green eyes and waist-length tawny hair, skin the golden tan of the Scarab worlds, very like her own. “Hello” she replied, her tone flattened to indicate a complete disinterest in further conversation.

“I’m Chance” the girl said.

“Chance is a word, not a name” Quillia answered without thinking. “What is your registered name?”

“Chance” she replied. “And your name is…”

“Quillia.”

Chance smiled. “Quillia’s not a name either.”

“Correctors are given special made-up names to replace their birth ones.” Preposterous as it was to ask of a little girl, “Are you a Corrector?”

“No. I’m Chance.”

Quillia pulled herself up into tailor seat, her eyes now just below the level of the girl’s profoundly green ones. Quillia cyber-linked and did a fast Centrus query, and discovered that there was, indeed, a young girl named Chance on record with a brief description that matched what Quillia was seeing.

There was no family name, no culture identifiers, not even a location or date of birth. Just ‘Chance’ and a description. Up until that very moment she’d thought such lack of data was categorically impossible. Centrus kept data on everyone, every single person in the Federacy of Worlds, birth right through to death.

She was going to have to fill in blanks another way. “Where do you come from?”

“Here.”

“The terminal or the world?”

“Yes.”

Quillia huffed exasperation just as the massive gate clanked once and then quietly turned itself up to flatten against the ceiling, revealing the ship’s cargo hatch. A moment later, this too opened, folding upward into the ship and revealing the broad, dimly lit utilitarian-grey corridor that led to the cargo hold, null grav rungs set at regular intervals in the angles. She got herself to her feet and donned her jacket, the mag strips promptly pulling it closed.

As protocol demanded, Quillia waited for the Captain to come out but the girl headed straight for the ship.

“Wait!” Quillia called out to her. “You’re supposed to…”

“Go in” Chance replied firmly.

A bald, somewhat portly man with a hawk-nose approached up the corridor, his cheap one-piece uniform of gold and blue looking a bit rumpled, likely picked up from where it had been dumped upon leaving the last port. He’d shaved but the slightest of reddening to his jaw told Quillia he’d only just.

“What the…” he commented, watching the girl go right past him and into the ship. He turned back to Quillia, staring askance.

Quillia shrugged. “Corrector Quillia, here for passage per Centrus direction” she told him, bending to pick up her duffel.

“Captain Park” he replied. “Was that the girl I’m supposed to pick up?”

“I have no idea” Quillia replied, and started in. “Which cabin have you assigned to me?”

“Now wait a minute” the Captain replied crossly. “I need to set down rules.”

By the look of him, peremptory action would do just fine. “I will stay out of the Bridge, utility spaces and other people’s cabins unless invited” she replied, still headed for him. “You have my word.”

He sputtered a bit at that but Quillia just strode right by him. “Cabin?”

“Twelve” he replied brusquely. “And welcome aboard.”

Surprised by this, she stopped and looked back. “Really.” A rabbit might as well have said “come on in” to a ferret.

“Really” he answered. “This might have been a disaster of a trip if it weren’t for the girl. I don’t mind taking you. This time.”

She turned around entirely to face him. “And who exactly is she?”

Surprised, he asked: “You don’t know?”

She shook her head.

He shrugged. “Neither do I. Not even her name.”

“Chance” Quillia told him.

He squinted at her. “That’s not a name.”

“Yeah” she answered sardonically, turned and headed for her cabin, which by its number was altogether too near the Twidrive as far as she was concerned.

Obviously, the Captain wasn’t all that enamoured of her being on this ship or she’d have been put further away where the close-by twisting out of and back into normal space-time wouldn’t cause so much additional physical pain and headache.

She took the lift down to Accommodation Four. “Open” she said to the cabin hatch when she got there, and it clanked unlock then slid into its slot back of the bunk, letting out a bit of a musty scent. The cabin itself was standard for the ship type, the battleship grey of the non-screen bulkheads likely the very same heat-blasted on by the original manufacturer. The stuff could be painted over or sand-blasted off but it never faded or flaked.

Stepping over the threshold she discovered Chance sitting on her bunk, examining one of the straps on the restraint harness.

“My cabin” Quillia told her, pointing to the hatch.

“Yes” said Chance.

“Not yours” Quillia told her firmly, crossing her arms.

“I know” Chance replied.

“So go then!”

“No.”

Taken aback, Quillia stared at the girl. The ‘no’ wasn’t childish petulance. She’d said it with quiet, compelling authority far beyond her years. Quillia took a moment to register her. After millennia of experience Quillia could tell a person’s character within moments, right down to whether they were intending on concealing anything, even if they weren’t thinking about it in that moment. She regarded the girl carefully and got nothing. Not a single indication whatsoever.

Even at her young age there ought to be more than that. Especially at her age since self-restraint wasn’t part of the make-up of so young a child. Chance was at rest, poised, and peaceful all at once. Quillia had only ever seen that degree of self-control in other Correctors.

She just had to ask. “How old are you?”

Chance smiled. “Compared to me, you’re just a child.”

Dodgy, and contradicted the obvious. “What do you mean?”

“Like a young child you obey authority, don’t question the world much beyond where curiosity might take you, and in your case even curiosity has dropped off considerably.”

Quillia swallowed annoyance at the answer, puzzled by the contradiction between words and appearance. “And you? Do you question authority? Do you wonder about the world?”

She smiled. “You couldn’t possibly have any idea how much.”

“Age doesn’t in and of itself alter curiosity” Quillia pointed out, wondering where all this was going, and then had to concede: “Older people do tend to have relatively rigid views of things.”

“Old people who stopped growing, who got stuck where they decided they liked being, who don’t care to go through the struggle to understand the new that’s required of anyone really alive.” Chance dropped the strap onto the bunk. It slid down and dangled off the side, pulling the harness over with it.

She slid off too, landing on bare feet and smoothing out the frock. “Just because you’ve seen a lot of years, doesn’t mean you’ve grown much over all that time.”

Quillia stared at the child, her eyes gone to slits. A good part of what Chance had just said marked her as a potential threat to Equilibrium but she’d committed no crime, and she certainly didn’t have the aura of someone intending one. “What am I to do with you?”

Chance smiled. “Ask me all the questions you want” she answered calmly.

“And if I don’t?”

“Then you’ll have defined yourself in a way that you and I both know to be a lie. You may be quiescent, but unlike other Correctors you are not stuck.” She smiled cheerily. “See you later.” She turned and left.

Quillia watched her go and wondered about having been required to stop on this world, whether the child was the reason. In spite of herself she cyber-linked, queried Centrus and exactly as expected got zero response. As an alternative, she reported the conversation, every last word of it, her cybernetics having recorded it all. Centrus would know what to do and direct Quillia accordingly.

She unpacked a little, storing a couple of personal items in the latched drawer of the built-in desk and stowing her duffel and jacket in the lock-sling under the bunk.

“Stand by for acceleration” came the Captain’s voice over the PA. “Everyone close hatch and strap in.”

Quillia ordered her hatch closed and, as it clanked to lock, took the pivot chair before the desk, pulled the harness about herself and connected the release. The Defender disk at her back promptly thinned, spread and conformed to her back, getting itself out of the way.

“Alright” said the Captain over the PA. “Everyone registers as restrained. Count of thirty.”

Quite obviously he wanted to be quit of this journey as fast as possible, but how had he managed to get clearance so fast?

A thought crossed her mind. She cyber-linked and checked, and found what she’d more than half expected.

Centrus had arranged it.

Curiouser and curiouser, she thought to herself, listening to the faint sound of the turbines whining up to full revolutions.

Her chair pulled itself back from the desk and extended into acceleration couch configuration, the headrest coming up to cup her head securely. The count reached zero and with a vast and comprehensive set of clangs the grapples released. Acceleration pressed down hard upon her as the Auliss’ secondary engines roared thunderously to life, the massive turbines thrusting the ship skyward.

By the pull on the skin of her face and sides, Quillia estimated a little over two and a half gravity thrust. This was remarkably close to the maximum thrust a ship this size could pull off short of atmosphere tearing parts away.

The ship shuddered as it passed the sound barrier. Quillia started her own version of a count-down based on the level of acceleration, and the primaries cut within seconds of her reaching zero.

She smiled to herself.

Though the ship had gone ballistic, she knew better than to unbuckle just yet.

The ship’s tertiaries were muttering and stuttering causing the ship to twist slowly about as it reoriented to the next trajectory, and then the primaries kicked in with what felt like a two-grav thrust.

Click. “Alright everyone” said the PA in the Captain’s voice, “one point two standard hours of thrust at two grav for us to reach alignment, then we Jump.” Hiss.

Bastard, Quillia thought to herself. He wasn’t giving her, or any of them for that matter, time to take the meds prescribed to reduce Jump effect. Going through a wormhole twisted everything, so to speak. The twist would cause an instant disintegration of matter but, in making the wormhole, the Twidrive twisted the ship at exactly the same time in the opposite ‘direction’, such that matter held together properly and the ship came out the other side in one piece. For the duration, though, chemical bonds and interactions grated just a little slow and unevenly, the source of the physical pain, headaches and other symptoms known as Jump Effect.

Quillia’s nanites would give her a considerable edge but everyone else would be feeling the full effect. Could be worse. Small as the Auliss was and given Wastril’s relative proximity they should be through in less than a standard half-hour, unlike an SC3 which might well take as long as five full standard days.

She felt for the child, though. If what the girl had said was true, this would be her first Jump. She’d be terrified. Quillia decided she was going to have a few words with the Captain about it.

Quillia herself had two advantages the others on the ship did not. First, her nanites would have her out of pain within a quarter hour of the completion of the Jump. Better still, she could deliberately sleep until it was all over. She took a deep breath and let it out slowly, forcing her consciousness down into a dreamless sleep…

… and woke to a face floating in front of her, tawny hair in a loose cloud about it, solemn green eyes waiting for her.

“There you are” said Chance conversationally.

“We’re ballistic” Quillia noted uselessly. The girl was floating in the air and would know as much.

“Have been for about a half standard now” Chance replied.

“Have you been waiting for me the entire time?”

“No. Captain gave me some package noodle soup to slurp” said Chance matter-of-factly. “I just got here.”

Quillia remembered she was going to have a word with the Captain. She unstrapped and grabbed the counter to pull herself out of the chair which had already restored itself.

“No need” said Chance. “I don’t react to Jumps the way others do.”

This was physiologically impossible. Unless…

“And no” Chance went on, “I don’t have Saecr Syndrome. I feel pain like everyone else.”

“The Captain wouldn’t have known you were …”

“I told him” Chance answered, cutting her off. “He didn’t believe me but I exercised my right not to take meds.”

Quillia bet herself that had to have been an interesting conversation, if the Captain was any kind of human at all. Not that human, because he’d obviously warned everyone but her ahead of time of the need to take meds.

They were past Jump but still ballistic. By now, the ship should have oriented to the trajectory required to get it to the planet, primaries on as needed to insert into orbit, but it depended on where they’d come out of Jump. Far enough out and he’d be setting up a micro-Jump to get them closer in.

“We’re a little over four days out” Chance told her as if reading her mind, her body floating completely relaxed in the air. “The Captain wants to save fuel and use the time to go through quarantine. Apparently our track should put us in orbit with very little additional fuel burned.”

“You’ve experienced null grav before” Quillia noted, based on how the child was handling what ought otherwise to have been a truly traumatic experience for someone her age.

“I haven’t, actually” said Chance.

Quillia could tell she wasn’t lying, which meant that she was either incredibly adaptable or knowledgeable enough about null grav to know what to expect and to compensate for the body’s natural fear. Either way, her aplomb was seriously impressive.

“Where were you born exactly?”

“Here.”

“That’s impossible.”

The kid smiled at her. “You should re-evaluate what’s possible. Are you the same person you were a moment ago? Isn’t this ‘you’ reborn into the moment every moment?”

Quillia had no time for philosophical games such as these. Obsessive interest in them was, in fact, an indicator that a culture was getting ready to slide out of Equilibrium, causing one such as she to show up and Correct those responsible for spreading them. The child had edged closer to Correction herself.

Chance had been watching her think for the fraction of the moment it took, and replied: “Come now Quillia, do you really think such subjects cease to exist just because curiosity about them can disturb Equilibrium?”

“Then let me set aside the birth of your ‘being’ a moment. Tell me where your physical body was born.”

“On a ship” she replied. “Grew on Dabrea.”

“So you lied to me. You did experience null grav before.”

Chance put her hands on her hips as if she were cross with Quillia and scolded her. “What makes you think I was awake on that ship?”

“Sorry…” Quillia realized that ensuring the baby was asleep would have prevented a lot of distress with Jumps and landings and, besides, Chance would have no memory of it. “And who were your parents?”

“My genetic forebears, you mean. Couldn’t say.”

Quillia narrowed her eyes at the girl for the strange answer but by this point it was just more of the same. “How did you end up on this ship, and please don’t tell me you walked.”

Chance chuckled. “Ask the Captain. I have limited information to give you except that I’m supposed to be here.”

“In this room or on this ship?”

“Yes.”

The girl was being cagey. There’d been plenty who’d tried that trick on her, none successfully. In Chance’s case, Quillia couldn’t detect the truth out of any faint pattern in the muddle. Except… “I’m a large part of the reason you’re on this ship. Yes?”

“Yes” Chance answered instantly.

She narrowed her eyes at the girl. “You do understand the penalty for trying to subvert a Corrector is death, don’t you?”

“I do, and I’m not trying to subvert you. I’m trying to wake you up.”

Subversion by its very nature implied a purpose. Waking in and of itself did not, but Quillia wasn’t going to bet on it. “Why are you trying to wake me?”

“Because you’re coming up on the very biggest challenge any Corrector has ever faced, and if you’re not awake you won’t be able to act.”

“And what challenge is that?”

Chance shook her head. “It’s too soon. You’re not awake yet.”

“I don’t even know what that means!” She checked, surprised at her instinctive reaction to the girl. She hadn’t lost control of herself like this in two millennia, and it was another Corrector who’d been so challenging.

Chance narrowed her eyes at her. “You’re old enough to know there are concepts the common tongue can’t articulate, yes?”

“Yes” Quillia answered, calming herself, somewhat unsuccessfully.

“It is possible that there are things to know that can’t easily be put into words?”

“Of course” said Quillia getting a little dizzy of being interrogated this way by such a little girl.

“This is one of them, Quillia. Give it time. You’ll understand. This Correction you’re embarked upon is a good step in that direction. I promise I’ll tell you once you’ve fully woken up, though by then you probably won’t need telling.”

Chance gave a small push on the desk and floated effortlessly out the door without the need for further course-adjustment. She pulled in her knees a little, spun her arms and torqued her body enough to grab one of the null grav rungs and give herself a tug down the hall.

Shocked, Quillia realized she had just witnessed the manoeuvre of a deeply experienced spacer. There was no possible way a child that age could have mastered it without being in space for extended periods. Nothing else in her interaction with Chance chilled Quillia quite so thoroughly as that sight had done.

They were in space and away from ordinary data networks but her cyber-link was designed for just such situations. She triggered it and linked directly with Centrus through the nearest node, promptly putting a request in for as much information on Chance as might be possible for her to have.

She didn’t get much more. The Auliss had been contracted to take a child from Dabrea to Wastril and to release the child into the terminal there. The amount of money bound in the Agreement, though, caused Quillia to suck in a breath. An SC1 with its huge cargo capacity fully loaded with the most expensive cargo imaginable would net less than an eighteenth of the value of this Agreement.

The Captain was effectively being bought, which raised a possibility.

She asked for and got a copy of the Agreement. To her surprise it was a cargo contract, though as she might have expected there was a ‘no questions asked’ clause but the shipper made no sense. Assern was an interplanetary concern, shipping entirely in-system. They could not possibly have the resources necessary to blow on such an extravagance and they certainly had no reason to do so.

The Draid Consortium, however, was the biggest and oldest of such concerns, manifold purposes not always evident and with ample resources to squander. Quillia requested all correspondence between Draid and Assern, received the packet and combed through the data. Just one record of a dinarae transfer roughly equivalent to the amount paid to the Captain of the Auliss. No mention of the child.

This by an incredibly huge stretch was not the first time a concern used human couriers to deliver messages. It was, in fact, the most effective way past Centrus’ monitoring. There were ways to discern such activity, the most obvious one in play here: a vast sum moving without any documentation to support it. Centrus was supposed to catch and flag these for investigation.

Quillia wondered if an investigation was underway but doubted it. By now her queries would have caused the Corrector involved to get in touch and ask her to step back.

So. No investigation. Centrus wasn’t interested in this or didn’t see it as a threat to Equilibrium, neither of which made any sense at all.

A part of her training, refreshed with every new millennium, came to mind: just because it is strange doesn’t mean its criminal or a threat to Equilibrium. It’s counterpart, which always bothered Quillia no end: just because its criminal doesn’t mean it’s a threat to Equilibrium.

The situation reminded her of her on-again off-again efforts to curb piracy. Centrus clearly didn’t think a moderate level of piracy was a threat. Quillia took issue with this at the very least because of the pain and suffering of the victims and their families. She’d investigate. She’d report findings. She’d get nowhere.

Even the Federacy would ignore her, which made no sense. One would think the Federacy would be interested in breaches to its laws.

This very SC4 ship was one pirates would particularly desire because such were the only Carrier class ships capable of landing on a planet, ideal for moving the kind of loot a pirate could get through linked airlocks in space, and for bringing back purchases made with the proceeds. When Quillia had discovered she was booked to travel on an SC4 the very next thing she’d done was a search of its history to detect if any pirate activity manifested.

She’d found none, which was unusual for a small shipper in as much financial trouble as the Captain certainly was, but she had to take into account that the Auliss kept to the fringes of the sector where a modest income could be eked out. Even the pirates wouldn’t be that interested in her.

A chill went up Quillia’s spine as she realized the ship was perfectly placed for exactly what was happening.

She levered herself out of the chair and through the hatch with every bit as much grace and fluidity as Chance had shown. She flung herself down the corridor to the lift shaft and threw herself up it, grabbing a rung at Bridge Deck and swinging herself through and out.

The Bridge hatch had been left open, not uncommon on some ships but the fact irritated her all the same. She peeked in and wasn’t all that surprised to find Chance already on the Bridge, chatting breezily with the Captain who was telling her about his family.

Her glimpse confirmed a sense she’d got from him. He’d become gun-shy of bad crews and, utilizing an option available on ships like his, had the consoles fixed in a circle at the Bridge’s center rather than against the walls. Gave him the opportunity to keep an eye on everyone.

She pulled up at the Bridge hatch and watched the two of them on the opposite side of the circle and somewhat blocked by it, still oblivious to her presence. Chance seemed very much the little girl in this environment completely unlike how she was in Quillia’s presence.

Disturbed for no reason she could specify, Quillia returned to her cabin where she strapped into the seat at her desk and called up a cinevid to watch. There was nothing to do for three days. She might as well.

She meditated, read, watched cinevids and exercised in the rec room. Every once in a while, she’d float about looking for Chance. The girl was nearly always with the Captain or crew, playing games or just chatting, being every bit a child her age. Not at all as she was in Quillia’s presence.

A chill went through her every time she saw her behaving so.

On the fourth day they were ordered back to restraints for a burn. The Captain didn’t specify the type.

Either the ship would do a small burn to insert into orbit, or a much larger one to set approach for descent but the burn, when it came, hit hard and lasted a long time, the weight on Quillia’s chest getting more and more intense, making breathing a little hard. They were almost certainly making for a straight drop, right to the planet’s one and only spaceport. Unusual to be so perfectly lined up for it, but not impossible.

The engines quit abruptly and then Quillia heard the faint, slowly increasing scream of air passing over the ship’s outer surfaces, and then the whine of the secondary turbines starting up. The secondaries kicked fully in, partly to drive searing hot air away from the engines and partly to slow the ship down, guided in by the Centrus-based nav system.

The ship descended without incident and shuddered hard as it settled into the cradle. A moment later came the heavy clank of grapples and the engines cut, leaving the faint sound of turbines gradually winding down.

Not trusting the Captain to give an all clear Quillia hit the release, got herself out of harness, donned her jacket, grabbed her duffel out from under the bunk, repacked, slung the bag over her shoulder and left the cabin. She found herself more than eager to get on with this Correction and, being self-honest, she admitted to herself she was looking forward to getting away from Chance.

She didn’t even bother stopping by the Bridge. She just took the lift to the cargo hold, passed through its empty space and headed down the corridor to the hatch that connected the ship to the terminal.

She slowed. A small form in a white frock was standing right in the center of the opening. The kid was three decks up from Quillia’s cabin. How in hell had she got down here so quick?

Intimidated by a child, she scolded herself. Really. She sped back up, determined to pass the girl by.

Chance just solemnly watched her, hands behind her back.

Just as Quillia rounded the corner to head for the concourse, a young voice behind her said “We’ll talk when you get back.”

Quillia slowed again, then forced herself to pick up speed. She put up kinetic shields and let her Defender slide down from under the back of the jacket. The Defender promptly lifted along the mag-line on her spine to become a small silvery disk whirling horizontally just above her head, looking very much like a halo, the very presence of which told everyone she was in process of carrying out a Correction.

People had been known to blanch and run at the sight. Not that it would help them if they were the target.

She’d been sent because Centrus had identified a court decision as being outside the parameters of good judgement. Quillia cyber-jacked a strong local network and began assessing the situation.

She found it in the news-streams almost immediately. A magistrate had cleared a large company of having failed compliance with food regulations, in effect preventing the company from having to pay a huge fine that might well have forced it into bankruptcy. As she strode through the terminal, Quillia called up and cyber-scanned the judgement, quickly spotting where facts had been glossed over and where interpretation of law had gone to an extreme for the sake of reaching a particular conclusion.

Satisfied the judgement had been compromised, she searched for correspondence between the magistrate and the company and, of course, found none. She then reviewed the accounts of both and initially found nothing out of the ordinary.

Digging deeper, she discovered the company had been making small payments over the course of a local year to a small third-party firm. She tracked the movement of dinarae through multiple accounts in many different planetary firms, a small amount being drawn off with each one, until the dinarae reached a medical specialist who lived in another system altogether. That specialist had recently come to Wastril to do pro bono gene-edit work on children with Hale Radical damage which would otherwise have caused them to die of organ failure at the age of twelve or so.

Quillia smiled grimly to herself as she strode out of the cargo area and towards the concourse. The magistrate’s daughter was one of the children who’d received treatment.

The specialist was still on-planet staying at a space-port lodge, surgeries still scheduled, not due to leave for another three local days.

Quillia instituted a travel-hold on the specialist, the magistrate, the CEO and the directors of the company that had bought itself a judgement. The travel-hold would cause consternation, no doubt, but her very presence on the planet would have been cause for alarm for all of them anyway. They’d have rabbited if she didn’t prevent it. Not that it would have done them any good. She just didn’t feel like chasing them down.

She got to the concourse and strode rapidly through to a chorus of shrieks and screams, people scrambling to get out of her path. She smiled a little. At times like these she felt like a Greek Fury, the intensity of her drive to act consuming every other desire or need.

She’d had experience with arriving at curbside to find every cab had discovered a need to be elsewhere. Still a few minutes away, she linked to one of the cabs there and locked it in place until she got to it. When she finally reached it, the driver protested at being held. She ignored her and gave directions.

Soon enough she was at the lodge where the specialist was staying, was in fact stuck in her room since the travel-hold would cause the door to refuse to open. Quillia strode through the lobby, once more to a chorus of screams, rode the lift up and strode the well-appointed hall to the specialist’s room.

The door unlocked and slid aside at her command. The woman was facing the door, kneeling, terrified, hands together before her face, pleading for mercy, smelling of urine.

Quillia went up to her, took her by the head, heels of her hands to the temples, and concentrated. Her cybernetics quickly identified the areas of the brain where much of the woman’s technical knowledge was stored. It took only a moment to scrub it.

Without a word Quillia let her go, turned and left, the woman sobbing helplessly behind her.

The cab was, not by choice, waiting for her. The driver cursed on seeing her, but all the same took her on to the company’s headquarters which were in the city adjacent to the terminal. Not too unusual a coincidence. Many firms liked to be near such terminals for the sake of appearances and this planet had exactly one spaceport.

Getting out of the cab, her kinetic barrier was immediately struck by a host of small projectiles. She grimaced in mild annoyance. The company directors had made the mistake of hiring thugs.

She cy-triggered her Defender to fire ion pulses at each thug’s medulla oblongata causing them to fold up into the ground. They’d wake with dreadful headaches later. She opted not to cause their guns to explode as other Correctors were known to do. She thought it a bit excessive given the zero chance of slugs getting through.

Inside, she stalked the corridors searching out the CEO and the directors one by one. They screamed and ran, every last one, but she’d sealed the building and locked all the doors. She caught them one by one and eliminated all but child-hood memories, a dramatic enough change to cause loss of consciousness. They’d wake shocked to discover themselves in adult bodies but someone would explain to them. She deemed it deterrent enough to prevent a repeat.

Done, she left the building, got back in the cab and directed it to the magistrate’s residence. This trip took a bit longer, the dwelling being well out of town in a gated community.

Arriving, she discovered a young girl in a blue school-uniform standing on the steps of a considerable mansion in the Sou-Am style, white columns, extensive porch, gables and other flourishes to demonstrate wealth. They were cheap and a lie.

Quillia got out of the cab without any intention of listening, well-used to such situations.

“Please don’t” the girl pled with her, voice broken. “Please. He loves me. He just wanted me to live.”

Quillia strode past her without a word and went in to find the man in full judicial robes placidly waiting for her. She didn’t even hesitate. She went up to him, put one hand just above the back of the neck, the other above the jaw.

She was about to break his neck when he said to her gently: “Worth it.”

She’d heard it all before, many, many times. She snapped his head around, turned and left as he collapsed to the ground.

Outside, she passed the girl now crying in a crumple on the steps, got back into the cab and directed it back to the spaceport.

She arrived to find it nearly deserted, the fear level in those working or waiting there generally too great for them to risk being around on her return. Again, not all that unusual. Not trusting that the company wouldn’t have set up a retaliation squad, she kept her kinetic shield up and Defender hovering.

She began the long hike through the narrow concourse, occasionally passing the rare ones capable of withstanding the dread. All that happened, though was an old woman in the robes of a Catholic order spitting on the ground and hissing at her “Angel of death!”

Quillia ignored that too and went on, querying Centrus for a ship assignment. To her surprise she discovered she’d been assigned the Auliss again. No question she’d got the Correction done quickly, taking less than a local day all in, but usually there was a ship nearly ready to go that would be commandeered. As rich as the Captain most certainly now was, surely the Auliss would be looking for some kind of cargo to offset the costs of coming here. How could the Captain have found a cargo that quickly?

A possibility crossed her mind that she instantly dismissed.

The thought, though, would not leave her alone.

Thus, she was not at all surprised to find Chance standing square in front of the Auliss’ cargo hatch waiting for her.

“That was quick” Chance said as Quillia passed her by, headed for her cabin. “Good at killing, aren’t you.”

Quillia rounded on her. “I help hold the line on Equilibrium. What I do ensures that the planets, the systems, the very Federacy itself holds together and stays in peace. Do you really think Equilibrium is served by a corrupt magistrate?”

“Is Equilibrium served by the death of a child? That’s what would have happened, you know.”

Quillia stared at her a moment, then turned and stalked off to her cabin. The answer ought to have been obvious. A corrupt magistrate getting away with it would open the door to more corruption, inevitably leading to chaos, including deaths. The company she’d just Corrected was an excellent case in point. Their mishandling of safety inspections had led to the illness and near death of some four hundred or so people.

She’d never before blinked at what a Correction did to those who survived, even when they stood right in front of her and expressed their pain.

So why did that one question bother her so much?

Despite

As Quillia was re-entering her cabin, Park was stabbing the Enact button to receive an incoming message. He read it, and lowered his head into his hands. He’d been having such a good time. He’d contacted his family and shared with them the news of the amazingly profitable trip he’d just made and what it meant for them. He’d contacted the repair yard where his ships had been stored and arranged for them both to be brought up to pristine condition. He’d engaged nine new crewmembers including a mate, all well-qualified, which was remarkable considering how out-of-the-way Wastril was.

And now this. A new message from Centrus indicating a Corrector would be travelling with him and that he was to stand by for destination.

Stand by! Stand by? The best that might be said was Centrus would have to give him time to complete the crew change-over. Centrus would know his former crew had already received their final pay along with the required travel stipend that would get them back to their home-planets if that’s what they wanted. They’d left sullenly, but they’d left. The ship wasn’t going anywhere until the crew he’d hired had boarded.

On the other hand, without knowing what planet they were being sent to, there was no possible way he could take on a cargo contract of any kind.

He slammed his hands down on the edges of the console, got up and headed for the hatch. He had no doubt the Corrector would be arriving soon and he wanted to have some choice words. Not that it would do him any good, but he’d feel better for it.

The lift took him down to the Cargo Deck and, when it opened, he discovered Chance standing there facing him.