Author: Rachel Bach

I shook my head. “I never said you were nice. In fact, I’m pretty sure I’ve said you’re an overbearing bastard of a captain. But you’re also a fair one who was honest with me when it would have been a lot easier not to be. I think you’re actually more excited than anyone at the idea of finally finding a real solution to this phantom business. After all, you were the one who was ready to send me to the lab on the slight off chance I could be useful, and you were the one who bounded up to the ship like an overeager dog just now.”

Caldswell glared at me a second more, and then he dropped his head with a sound that was halfway between a laugh and a curse.

“You certainly do come in guns blazing,” he muttered, crossing his arms over his chest. “Fine, Morris, you want the truth? I hate this bullshit more than Brenton does. But unlike John, I’m a realist. Yes, the system is awful, but it’s what we have. For seventy years, that’s been the cold, hard truth. But now here you come with your golden ticket, and even though I know it’s stupid to get my hopes up, I want to believe you’re our miracle so bad it hurts.”

He stepped closer, eyes on the gun that was still pressed against my helmet. “You want promises?” he said. “You got ’em. Come with us without trouble, and I’ll swear whatever oath you want that the moment your virus proves viable, I’ll do everything in my power to free the daughters to your satisfaction. I’ll break them out myself if need be. Just please, for pity’s sake, stop pointing that cannon at my last hope, would you?”

I didn’t move Sasha an inch. “And Maat,” I said. “I made her a promise. She goes free as well.”

Something went dark behind Caldswell’s eyes. “No,” he said softly. “Everyone else can go, but not her.”

I narrowed my eyes. “Maat too.”

“We can’t,” Caldswell said. “She’s mad, and she hates us.”

“Maybe if you didn’t treat her so badly, she wouldn’t hate you so much.”

Caldswell didn’t budge. “If we let her go free, there’s no telling how much damage she could do getting her revenge.”

“She doesn’t want revenge!” Actually, I wasn’t sure about that, but I was reasonably certain that given a choice between freedom and payback, Maat would take the out. “Look, I know she’s crazy. I’ve talked to her, it’s kind of hard to miss, but she’s not beyond reason. She just wants the pain to stop.”

“She wants to kill us all,” Caldswell snapped. “You know more about phantoms than most Eyes do by this point, Morris, but you still don’t understand just how deep this rabbit hole goes. Even if Maat was sane, we couldn’t let her go. I can’t say more than that without forcing Charkov back there to shoot me, so you’ll have to trust me when I tell you that our current problems are nothing compared to what could happen if Maat was allowed to have her way. And don’t bother wasting time on more threats. I’d let you blow your brains out and lose the virus forever before I’d even lie about promising to set Maat free.”

If I’d thought that was a bluff, I would have tried to call him on it, but Caldswell wasn’t nearly as good at faking as Rupert, and I could see plainly that he was deadly serious. Unfortunately, his determination left me in a predicament. This wasn’t just a question of right and wrong; I owed Maat for getting me out, and I paid my debts. But I’d played almost all my cards now, and Caldswell clearly wasn’t going to be swayed. If I kept pushing, I could end up with nothing, so as much as I hated to do it, I decided it was time to cut my losses.

“The daughters go free,” I said. “They get rehabilitated, go back to their families, and no more will ever be made. I also want amnesty for the Eyes if they want to leave, no more lifelong servitude.”

I kept my eyes on Caldswell as I said this, but I was watching Rupert through my rear cam. He was too good to let any emotion show on his face, but I saw his breath hitch, and I had to suppress my smile. I wasn’t doing this because I liked him, of course. This was just payment for all he’d risked to give me a choice earlier. Now he had an out, too, which made us even. Besides, so long as I was pointing a gun at my head to help others, I might as well grab as many concessions as I could.

“Daughters and Eyes,” Caldswell said with a sharp nod. “Anything else?”

“Yes,” I said. “I want to avoid destroying all the phantoms if possible.”

Caldswell’s stern expression collapsed into confusion. “What?”

“They’re not monsters,” I said firmly. “They don’t mean to hurt us, they just blunder into planets because it’s their nature.”

“So you’re going to give us the virus that kills phantoms on the condition we don’t kill phantoms?” Caldswell said, putting his fists on his hips. “Are you out of your damn mind?”

“I understand you’ll have to kill some of them,” I said. “I’m just saying we shouldn’t slaughter their entire species. When a wolf comes into your field and kills your sheep, you shoot it. You don’t go out and massacre all wolves.” Caldswell was still giving me the stink eye, but the poor trapped phantom’s plaintive whimpers kept echoing in my head, and I wasn’t going to budge. “I don’t know what phantoms are,” I admitted. “But they’re not evil, and they don’t deserve to die just for sharing the same space we do.”

“A Paradoxian environmentalist,” Caldswell muttered, rolling his eyes. “Now I’ve seen everything. Fine, I’ll try to make sure whatever weapon we get out of you only kills bad phantoms. Good enough?”

When I nodded, he held up his hand, counting off on his fingers. “So we’ve got free the daughters and stop the creation of new ones, amnesty for Eyes who want to leave, and targeted phantom killing. And now I’m afraid to ask, but is there anything else?”

“Yes,” I said. “There’s the matter of how I can be sure you’re going to keep your promises once I lower this gun.”

Caldswell looked nonplussed. “I suppose my word as a gentleman doesn’t cut it?”

“Not even if you were a gentleman,” I said, shaking my head.

“Then we’re at an impasse,” Caldswell replied. “You can’t walk around with that gun to your head forever.”

“You’re right,” I said. “But I don’t have to.”

I looked Caldswell straight in the eye, and then, slowly, I lowered Sasha. Caldswell watched me like a hunting hawk, but he didn’t move a muscle even when I returned my gun to my holster. I let him look. I was about to play my final and biggest card.

Even though I’d told Baron Kells almost everything, I hadn’t been able to explain what had happened in the darkness after I killed the phantom. I still couldn’t explain it fully, but I’d gotten the general gist. Enough to play the most epic bluff of my life.

“I can call the lelgis,” I said. “They’re looking for the virus right now. They already killed off an entire xith’cal clan trying to destroy it, and I doubt they’d stop at eliminating you, too, if they thought it would do the trick. Right now I’m safe because they don’t know where I am, but I know how to let them find me, and if I ever think you’re double-crossing me, that’s exactly what I’ll do.”

I didn’t know if any of that was actually true, but I must have been convincing enough, because Caldswell was looking at me like he’d never seen me before. “You don’t know what you’re messing with,” he said angrily. “The lelgis don’t operate by our logic. If you bring them into this, you’ll start a war that will kill far more than any phantom.”

“Then you’d better keep your word,” I said, lifting my chin.

The captain stared at me a moment longer, and then his shoulders began to shake. It was so unexpected, it actually took me several seconds to realize Caldswell was laughing. “You are one crazy piece of work, Deviana Morris,” he said, breaking into a grin. “I knew there was a reason I liked you. Fine, fine, you win. I don’t have the stomach to play in your league.”

I smiled back. “Does that mean we have a deal?”

“We do, indeed,” Caldswell said, sticking out his hand. I took it and shook hard. If Caldswell had been anything other than a symbiont, I would have crushed his fingers, but he was a tough old bastard, and he just grinned wider.

“Pack up here and meet us on the Fool, Charkov,” he ordered, motioning for me to go ahead down the ramp. “I’ll see you in my office as soon as we enter the jump.”

“Yes sir,” Rupert said. The reply sounded normal, but when I glanced back at Rupert through my rear cam, his face was defiant.

That seemed to throw Caldswell as well. He stared at Rupert for a moment before shaking his head and turning to follow me down the ramp. “You are a terrible influence on him,” he said as we started across the tarmac toward the Fool. “Ruined one of my best Eyes.”

I could tell he meant that as a joke, but my mouth pressed into a thin line. “If anything ruined Rupert as an Eye, it was you when you made him shoot me.”

Caldswell stopped short, and then, to my surprise, the captain’s shoulders fell. “Fair point,” he muttered, picking up the pace again. I followed a few steps behind, too shocked at hearing Caldswell admit I was right to push any further.

The Glorious Fool looked just like always, and no worse for wear for her adventures. The dents the emperor phantom had put in the hull had all been hammered out, and they’d even replaced the captain’s window that Maat had blown off to free me. The ramp was down and the cargo bay doors were open, showing the empty hold. Nothing new there, either. I was about to ask Caldswell why he even bothered pretending to ship things when I spotted Mabel leaning against the Fool’s ramp.

She also looked unchanged, even had the nerve to flash me her usual carefree grin as the captain and I came closer. “Welcome back,” she said, like I’d just been out on shore leave instead of running for my life. “Enjoy your getaway?”

I opened my mouth to say something nasty, but Caldswell cut me off. “Get the engines warmed up,” he ordered. “I want off this rock the second Rupert is ready.”

“Yes, captain,” Mabel said, hopping up onto the ramp as nimbly as a cat.

I watched her go with a scowl. “So is she really your sister-in-law?”

“No,” Caldswell said. “But I was good friends with her husband before he died.”

I blinked. “Eyes have husbands?”

“Not officially,” Caldswell said. “But so long as they keep it inside the organization and it doesn’t affect their work, I let it slide.”

I shook my head. Caldswell really was a romantic. Before I could call him on it, though, he smacked me on the shoulder. “Mind your mouth,” he warned as we walked into the Fool. “We’re not an open secret yet.”

I was about to ask him how much the crew did know when I spotted a pale blur coming down the stairs from the lounge. I turned to face whatever it was just in time for Nova to slam into me.

She was so light I barely felt her hit, but I was happy all the same. “Oh, Deviana!” she cried, hugging me tight. “We were so worried!”

I had no idea what story Caldswell had fed the crew about my disappearance, but I wasn’t about to disabuse her of it. The lie was likely keeping her safe, and damned if I was going to mess that up. “I’m fine,” I said, carefully hugging her back. “Sorry to worry you.”

Nova beamed at me, and I winced. She looked way too much like her brother when she did that, and I didn’t want to think about poor Copernicus at the moment. I opened my mouth to ask her how the ship was doing instead, but I never got the words out, because at that moment sirens erupted across the space dock.