Lordling hurms in annoyance as Helen picks him up from his carrier. Her heels click across the asphalt toward the facility’s concrete bulk.
At the first checkpoint there’s soone new. Well, that makes sense. They had a number of people to replace. A wispy mustache, a kevlar vest, an apologetic “We can’t bring animals into this facility, ma’am.”
“I’m sure you can’t,” she says. “Step aside, please.”
His senior coworker tugs him to one side and gives him a patient, whispered explanation. Helen steps past to the elevator bank. Chapters first released on novel★fire
Down and further down. She rembers to open her jaw, to yawn, which isn’t difficult. A lot of sleepless nights of late.
Lordling chirrs in her arms. “Hush,” she admonishes. “You’ll have your independence privileges back when I have my new bag of potting soil, and not a mont before.”
As she walks the fluorescent basent she spares a glance to the papered-over door that Grant Hyde once sat behind. There was only ever the one snatching broadcast and then silence. She imagines him out there sowhere with the Void Princess. Lounging around with a leash like a greyhound, if the lady she’s interviewing is telling the truth.
Helen still isn’t sure about that, but it’s sothing of a foundation, at least.
She hands Lordling off to Harry, who’s manning the door today. “Hey, little terrorist,” he coos to the cat. Lordling makes an unamused sound.
“He’s so chatty today,” Harry says.
“Uh-huh.” Helen zips her coverall up. “Is she?”
He shrugs. “Asked about the family, the kids. That sort of thing.”
“You tell her much?”
“No, ma’am.”
“She didn’t shine at you, did she?”
He shakes his head. “Doesn’t work on us anyway, right?”
“Still,” she says. “Log it if it happens.”
“You got it, ma’am.”
Helen moves into the chamber beyond. B-21 is on her side of the visitation glass, eating an apple and reading Herman lville. She smiles a fanged smile at her counterpart.
“Hello, Miss Helen,” she says.
Helen sits on the stool outside the glass. “Hello, B-21.”
“Your insistence on the little number trick is a regular source of amusent for my people and I.” B-21 chuckles. “I see the, uh—what’s the word. The psychological effect you attempt. But there is no need to resort to it. I have been called many things; it does not disturb or depower , or change where the power rests.”
Helen relaxes her shoulders. “Would you prefer I call you sothing else, then?”
“You can call Zyiafikai, if you’d like.” B-21 dog-ears her passage and sets her book aside. “In your tongue it ans one who is looking to make ands. A repenter.”
“A penitent?”
“Penitent.” B-21 sounds it out. “A fine-sounding word, if you like.”
“All right, Penitent,” Helen says. “Why have you asked for ?”
B-21 nods to the door on her side of the divider. “I wish to tell you that my crew and I will be departing your world for a ti.”
“Ah.” Helen crosses her legs. “That won’t work for us.”
B-21’s smile stays on. “I assure you, it will.”
“You aren’t leaving,” Helen says. “Not until you’ve fulfilled your part of the agreent.”
“Really, Miss Helen.” B-21’s tail swishes back and forth. Lordling’s eyes follow it from the observation desk. “This confidence is unearned, when we both know your record with keeping my people where we don’t wish to be. You may step aside and allow us passage, or we will find it on our own. I think our preference aligns on which option to take.”
Helen sighs. “I’ll see what I can get you, if you tell why you’re relocating.”
“Tell your officers it is an act of insurance on my part,” B-21 says. “A recent outgoing call I placed from your world ended poorly. There is a small chance it was traced. It is best that I be gone from here for a ti.”
“Traced?” Helen’s eyes narrow behind her horn-rimd glasses. “That would be a gross act of misconduct on your part.”
B-21 holds up a hand. “And I would take care of it. But as I’ve told you, it’s unlikely.”
“And yet you’re still going.”
“I am,” B-21 says. “I have appointnts to keep. Individuals in my network I owe conversations and check-ins.”
“You said they’d be monitoring our orbits.”
“They are. But those monitors are automated, and I have thods and tools to countermand the automations the Empire has in place. What I do here, I can keep secret.”
Helen frowns. “I don’t suppose they’re thods you would share.”
“Not yet, my Earthling friend,” B-21 says. “You are far from prepared for them.”
“We’ve tolerated your presence here. We’ve indulged your curiosity with B-31. You’ve been giving us precious few of the answers you promised. Now you fly off again after putting more attention on us?”
B-21 laughs. “Trust when I tell you that the attention being paid to your world has little to do with . I will make ands on my return.”
“When will that be?”
“When my business is attended to, and I know you’re safe.” B-21 stands up to her full height (nothing to write ho about). “And in return for how graciously you have hosted , I will help you decode the puzzle that Sykora Nai Kei’na Terokai left on your world.”
Helen tightens her grip on her stool. She tries to hide her eagerness under a veneer of professional calm. “T-1?”
“Correct,” B-21 says. “If you’ll allow access to the wreckage, I have a great deal to show you.”
“How you achieve FTL?” Helen leans forward. “Would you show us that?”
“FTL.” B-21 tilts her head. “This would be…”
“Faster-than-light.”
“Ah.” The alien woman nods. “Yes. Yes, that will be as good a place to begin your explorations as any. FTL, eh? A handy acronym.”
“What do your people call it?”
“The closest word in your tongue, as I understand it,” the Penitent says, “is sweep.”
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