“Why are we going to Iapetus?” demanded Orson. “I don’t want to go there,”

  “Nobody cares where you do or don’t want to go, Orson.” said Hesper. “You’ve probably never been off Dunbar before this week. You should be grateful.”

  “I’ve been off Dunbar.” said Orson. “I wasn’t born there. I’m from Triton. Well, not Triton but one of the satellites…”

  “Which one?”

  “Ruach,”

  Atesthas snorted. “That explains the accent,” said Hesper.

  “I don’t have an accent,” said Orson. Hesper nodded at him sincerely.

  “Right. So Iapetus.” she said. “There’s a doctor there we’ve used before. A friendly doctor. Somewhat friendly.”

  “Can’t we go to any doctor? Or is it an insurance thing?”

  Atesthas and Hesper both sniggered. Orson scowled at them. “What?”

  “Insurance…” said Atesthas.

  “Orson, you’ve seen Atesthas with his shirt off.” said Hesper. “You’ve seen the absolute horror show under there,”

  “It’s...not the worst thing I’ve seen,” said Orson.

  “When did he see me with my shirt off?” said Atesthas.

  “It’s very obvious that he used to be in the military and then he left without getting all his hardware properly removed.” continued Hesper. “ Which means that it’s very obvious he deserted,”

  “I didn’t desert,” said Atesthas. “How many times…”

  “And also,” continued Hesper, “As you’ve noticed by now, all the junk in Atesthas’ body causes certain difficulties,”

  Orson nodded. “Yeah, with anything that...connects to other things,”

  “Which is everything. So no, we can’t just go to any doctor.”

  “I get it,” said Orson. “So you know this doctor and she’s safe and whatnot,”

  “She won’t immediately turn either of you over to authorities which is the main thing,” said Hesper. “And she needs the work enough to tolerate Atesthas’...special needs. She’s not the best doctor but she can patch him up and tell us what you’ve got inside you. And that’s all we need.”

  “But why does it need to be Iapetus?”

  “We’re not actually going to Iapetus for what it’s worth,” said Hesper. “We’re going to Coblentz station,”

  “Which is an Iapetus satellite,” groused Orson.

  “Okay. Just tell me. What is the problem with Iapetus?” asked Atesthas. “I had decided to not ask but I’ve got no self-control. Just tell me.”

  Orson opened his mouth to answer but Hesper got in first. “Machine supremacist cheerleaders like Orson here never shut up about Iapetus because they don’t allow any synthetic intelligences there. No artificial life at all, they don’t believe in it.”

  “Ah, right,” said Atesthas. “I think I have heard about that. They’re religious weirdos there, huh?”

  “They’re nutters,” said Orson.

  “There’s a large conservative traditional population on Iapetus.” said Hesper. “They see artificial life as an affront. So the mech rights crowd think Iapetus should be subjected to mass re-education,”

  “But we’re not actually going there,” said Atesthas.

  “No, we’re going to Coblentz,”

  “Which has the same backwards ignorant culture as Iapetus,” said Orson.

  “If you feel like leaving him there, Captain,” said Hesper, “I would be quite happy to forfeit the money we’re hoping to recoup. It would be worth it.”

  In spite of Orson’s protestations the AGMG made its way to Coblentz, a small station off Iapetus. Coblentz was a tourist station, not an industrial estate like Dunbar. Coblentz was the budget option for the thrifty traveller to Iapetus. Cheaper hotels than Iapetus, cheap transport up and down to Iapetus. It was a relatively recent construction but made in a sort of fake ‘traditional’ style. It was small enough that you just had to walk around everywhere and the streets were all small shops and little stalls selling food and souveniers of Iapetus and Saturn (two locations where you were definitely not located) and general crap. Orson would have been ready to hate it even if they hadn’t had such retrograde cultural attitudes.

  This was okay though. He was quite relaxed because there was no way this would be the kind of place they’d be able to offload him, despite Hesper’s threats. There was no industry here other than hospitality and selling crap to low-class tourists. He wasn’t thrilled about going to the doctor but it was just for a scan.

  This was fine.

  “You’re staying on the ship?” said Atesthas. McPhail and Hesper both nodded.

  “You don’t even want to go get food or anything?”

  “How many times have we been here?” said Hesper. “There’s nothing worth leaving the ship for.”

  McPhail nodded in agreement.

  “And with the captain off the ship, really I should stay so that there’s a senior officer aboard. Although McPhail could go along,”

  McPhail shook his head.

  “Suit yourselves,” said Atesthas. “Me and Orson will go and have a really nice time.”

  “I’m sure,” said Hesper. “Orson will enjoy continuing that lecture he started trying to give you the other night.”

  “I wish I could go,” said Pallas. “It looks nice,”

  “It’s not nice,” said Orson.

  “Oh good grief,” said Hesper. “Captain, get him out of here before he gets started again.”

  Atesthas grinned. “Come on, Orson, let’s go find out what’s wrong with us. Did you talk to the doc, Hesp?”

  “Of course I did, Captain, she’s expecting you.”

  McPhail opened the door and Atesthas turned to give Hesper a mock salute. “Handing over watch.”

  “You are relieved,” said Hesper. “Have fun,”

  Orson remembered to check his pockets for factors before he stepped out. He found one in his jacket and one in his trousers and tossed them back towards McPhail. “Stay here, little guys.” he said. “The barbarians here would think you’re satanic, it’s not safe.”

  Orson wouldn’t have admitted it, but he found Coblentz to be quite nice. There was something he kind of liked about the fake rustic patina of everything. He had to keep reminding himself that it was a hellhole and everybody here wanted to eliminate synthetic life from the universe. He kept seeing food he wanted to try but Atesthas wouldn’t let him. “After the doctor,” said Atesthas. “You’re about to have an abdominal scan, you can’t go in with your belly full. You can try all the weird snacks you want to afterwards.”

  They walked along narrow winding little streets. The ceilings were all painted like the sky- presumably what the sky on Iapetus looked like, with a view of Saturn’s rings. Orson didn’t want to like it but his taste was so horrendous, he couldn’t help it. He and Atesthas were about the only young-ish people on the station it seemed. The place was absolutely crammed with middle-aged-to-elderly tourists all livecasting their stupid holidays to their message-groups and trying to find the very worst snow-globe imaginable.

  Since Atesthas couldn’t use a handheld Orson was the navigator. This was unfortunate. Almost no street went walked only once. There was a lot of backtracking and circling. There was a fountain they kept accidentally finding their way back to: Orson was quite taken with it the first time but after they’d unintentionally encountered it another few times it became a very unwelcome sight. “This is ridiculous,” gurned Orson. “You’re a ship captain, aren’t you supposed to be able to navigate without any technology? Like using the stars?”

  “I can,” said Atesthas unconvincingly. “Doesn’t work when the sky is painted on, though,”

  “Excuses,” said Orson.

  “What’s yours?” said Atesthas. “You’ve got a handheld, you’re looking at a map.”

  “These streets are not well labelled,”

  “Why don’t we try down there?” suggested Atesthas, looking around. They were drawing some odd looks. Atesthas was wearing pretty much just pyjamas (he said he refused to get dressed properly when he was feeling poorly) and had two black eyes from his clearly broken nose. Orson was wearing his usual hi-vis work gear. They didn’t look like tourists.

  “I don’t think we’ve been along that street before. It’s worth a try, come on.”

  Orson followed Atesthas across the public square and down one of the corridor-streets. This one was particularly narrow. It had been made so that the upper floors of the buildings hung out over the ground levels. You could probably reach out of a second-storey window and tap on the window of the house across the street. Orson really didn’t want to like it but he couldn’t resist. It was so- godammit- charming. Maybe he wouldn’t mind if Hesper did ditch him on this backwards fascist hellhole of a station. “Here it is.” said Atesthas, pointing into shadowed alcove with a flight of stairs disappearing up into complete darkness. “Dr Elise Westenberg MD and alternative therapy practitioner, that’s her. I thought I recognised this street,”

  “No you didn’t,” said Orson. “Alternative?”

  “It says MD, she’s a real doctor too,”

  Atesthas went through the alcove and started bounding up the stairs. Orson followed him slowly. He used his handheld as a torch to light the dark staircase. Atesthas clattered away above him. Maybe he had augmented eyes so he could see in low light, that seemed like the kind of thing they would give soldiers. Orson looked at the address on the screen: 4/6, did that mean it was on the 4th floor or the 6th? Either way, too many floors. Orson kept trudging up until he walked into Atesthas. “Hey!” said the captain. “We’re here.”

  The door Atesthas knocked on was answered minutes later by a tall, skinny older woman with greying brown hair. “Hello, Captain Allan,” she greeted Atesthas.

  “Hi, Dr Westenberg,”

  Orson thought it was a bad sign that the doctor answered her own door. Weren’t doctors supposed to have receptionists? “Call me Elise, Captain, I’ve told you before. And this must be Orson. A new crewmate?”

  Orson opened his mouth to reply but Atesthas answered “Yeah, looks like it.”

  Dr Westenberg gave Orson a long look. “Good.”she said. “Well, come on in.”

  They all stepped into the doctor’s waiting-room-slash-sitting-room. The doctor saw Atesthas in the light and clocked his black eyes. “Another broken nose, Captain?”

  “If that’s your diagnosis.”

  “You’ve had enough of them to self-diagnose. What do you need me to look at?”

  “I’ve got a couple of things,”

  “Okay. And Orson, you want a scan to see what’s in there?”

  Orson nodded. “But we don’t want to know the sex,” said Atesthas. “So don’t ruin the surprise.”

  Orson waited in the sitting-room while Dr Westenberg examined Atesthas. The room was lined with shelves floor to ceiling. All kinds of nick-nacks and junk all over them. Several books, maybe as many as twenty. Orson had never seen so many books. The doctor must be rich. This made Orson feel a little more confident in her medical abilities, which he supposed was the point of displaying a collection of books in your waiting-room. Everything was dark and cosy. There was one overhead light, not very bright, and sconces here and there at just-above-Orson’s-head height. No light got in through the small window that looked out over the street.

  Orson hoped it wasn’t completely unacceptable to have a nosy at the books while he waited. Whatever the doctor was doing to Atesthas was taking so long and Orson knew he would start to fall asleep if he stayed sitting in the comfy chair. He got up and started looking around at the shelves. He decided that the doctor wouldn’t leave the books out within the reach of idiots if she really didn’t want to have idiots like him touching them. All the books were either very specific and technical looking medical books or they were hokum about crystals and auras and stuff. Orson rather wanted to look at one of the silly ones because he knew it would annoy him in just the way that he liked to be annoyed. He was too afraid that the doctor would come out and see him reading it and think that he was sincerely interested, though. He left them alone.

  He chose a book about common mining injuries that had lots of pictures. Orson horrified himself pleasantly for a while until he remembered that he might have to go and do some mining himself soon. Then it stopped being pleasant.

  Orson put that book away. He selected one about infections and rejection of neurological adjuncts. Orson didn’t have a neural adjunct. He flicked through the horrendous images smugly enjoying the knowledge that he did not have a neural adjunct. He felt a little bit sick.

  “Right then,” said Dr Westenberg, suddenly appearing round one of the bookcases.. “Let’s have a look at you.”

  Orson felt a nervous lurch in his bowels though he wasn’t exactly sure why. He put a polite smile on his face and followed her into her treatment room. After the busy clutter of the doctor’s sitting-room, her completely stark and clinical treatment room was a welcome surprise to Orson. If he was ever receiving medical attention he wanted it on be on a plastic-coated adjustable bed and under glaring icy white lights.

  “Captain Allan explained somewhat,” said the doctor. “But why don’t you tell me what the situation is here.” It sounded like a demand rather than a suggestion.

  “Well,” said Orson, “I work for- I mean, I used to work for- Daintree,”

  He paused to see if there was going to be any response to that. Apparently not. The doctor just looked at him. He continued. “You probably know, they use some of their employees- their human employees- to grow organs and other body parts inside, like skin and stuff,”

  Dr Westenberg nodded, looking impatient already. “Yes, yes. So you’re such an employee,”

  “Yeah,”

  “So what seems to be the problem?”

  “No problem,” said Orson, “That I know of. We just want to know what’s in here.”

  Orson placed his hands on his belly. The doctor stared. “You don’t know what’s in there?”

  “Mm-hm. No.”

  “Did you not ask? Or did they not answer?”

  Orson shrugged. “I asked once, maybe. And they said something about anonymity or privacy or something like that,”

  The doctor looked at him,

  “Because it’s to do with...a medical issue,” he added.

  “That doesn’t make sense,” said Dr Westenberg.

  “...No.”

  “It’s probably more to do with them not wanting you to know what you’re carrying so that you won’t start thinking too carefully about how much it could be sold for. And to whom.”

  “Maybe.”

  The doctor picked up a scanning wand with a screen slightly smaller than a handheld attached to it. She turned it on and started fiddling about with it. She leaned in close to Orson, not looking at him. “You know,” she said in a low voice, “There’s a back entrance that can be accessed from in here. If you wanted to, I think you could leave alone that way instead of with Captain Allan.”

  She was looking down at the scanner. “Pull up your clothing, would you?” she said, more loudly. “To expose your tummy,”

  Orson unzipped his jacket and pulled his hoodie up over his belly. “Do you...think I should?” he asked quietly. “That’s entirely up to you,”said the doctor. “Pull up the vest as well. Thank you. It seems as though Captain Allan and his friends are hoping to sell you for parts, doesn’t it?”

  “That’s the plan, sort of,” said Orson. There were a couple of different ways that could play out. Orson hadn’t wanted to press Hesper for specifics about what she intended to do with him.

  “You seem resigned to that and I admire your stoicism,” said Dr Westenberg. “But...if you’d prefer not to stick with their plan, I’m just saying. There’s an exit route.”

  Orson nodded slowly. The doctor looked into his eyes very hard, unblinking, for a little too long.

  “Right, then,” she said. “Let’s see what you’ve got inside,”

  The doctor placed the scanning wand over Orson’s belly and moved it around, frowning down at it. “Hmm...she said.

  “That doesn’t sound good,” said Orson. He did a nervous laugh.

  “I think you’ve been lied to.” said Dr Westenberg. “It doesn’t look like you’ve got extra organs in there. In fact, you’ve got one...yes, you’ve only got one kidney,”

  “Huh,” said Orson. “So what is in here? Am I just fat?”

  “Oh, you are fat,” said the doctor. “But there is something in there. I just don’t know what-”

  She paused. She moved the scanner very slowly back and forth over one area for a moment or two.

  Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  “Get out.” she said. “Now. Out!”

  She gesticulated towards the door with the scanner. “Get out of my office! GO!”

  Alarmed, Orson slid off the table and started to back away from her. She looked as though she might hit him with the scanner. “GET OUT!” she screeched, brandishing it.

  “Wha-what’s going on?” said Orson, backing towards the door. “What is it?”

  “Get out!” she yelled. “OUT! OUT!”

  Orson scrabbled at the door handle blindly while trying to keep turned towards the lunatic doctor.

  “It’s a bomb!” she shrieked at him. “You came in here with a BOMB inside you!”

  The door opened from outside, pushing Orson in towards her. She screamed and swiped at him. “Get out! Get off this station! NOW!”

  “Hey, hey,” said Atesthas, squeezing in behind Orson. “What’s this about a bomb?”

  “Get him out of here! Both of you! You brought a bomb onto this station!”

  Atesthas and Orson backed out of the room. The doctor pushed the door shut and yelled through it at them. “I’m calling the bomb in right now so you’d be wise to get yourselves back to your ship as fast as you can. Right now, Allan,”

  “Are-” said Atesthas. He turned up his volume to a yell to match Dr Westenberg. “ARE YOU SURE?”

  “Yes!”

  Orson looked around at Atesthas, eyes wide. “Do you think?”

  Atesthas shrugged helplessly. “How the hell would I know?”

  “She seems serious,” said Orson.

  “We have to act like she is, anyway.” said Atesthas. “If she calls it in this whole place locks down and we’re stuck here.”

  “Then let’s go!” said Orson.

  They started barging out through the sitting-room. Orson knocked over one of the nice little chairs. “Aargh!” he yelled, stumbling.

  “Careful,” said Atesthas. “We’ll be slower if you break your leg,”

  “How long have we got?” asked Orson.

  “Depends how long it takes her to convince station command that she’s not a nutter.”

  Atesthas started undoing the locks on the front door. “From the time they decide to take her seriously, maybe two minutes,”

  Orson dropped to his knees and started working on the lower locks. Between them they got the door open and out and started running down the stairs.

  “Hesper!” said Atesthas.

  “Huh?”

  “Tell her what’s going on,” said Atesthas. “Call Hesper! Now!,”

  ----------

  Aboard the AGMG all was perfect idyll.

  McPhail was in the hangar tattooing himself. Pallas was on the flight deck watching her livecasters. Hesper was painting her quarters. The pale sea-foam green had been depressing her for about a year now and at long last she’d gotten this bit of down-time to get rid of it.

  She’d picked up some nice orangey-red paint months ago and now some of McPhail’s factors were busy moving it from the tins onto her walls. Hesper was supervising the little menaces, meaning she was browsing for coffee tables on her handheld and idly playing with herself. The factors didn’t really need much supervising. They admittedly were extremely competent. McPhail had whinged when Hesper asked to use his highly sophisticated scientific imaging and surveying equipment to paint her bedroom but he couldn’t talk. He was the one who got them to do things like hang up the washing and trim his toenails. Hesper didn’t want to really piss McPhail off, though, so she had tied a clear plastic bag around each of the little machines so they wouldn’t get paint on themselves. They were being very diligent about keeping themselves clean. Whenever one of them tore its plastic baggie (by snagging on something or poking one of its appendages through) it would present itself to her immediately to be put into a fresh bag.

  Hesper was looking at a very baroque white coffee-table and considering replacing all of her furniture to match when her handheld popped up a box over the photo of the coffee-table and asked her if she wanted to answer a call? Because there was one coming through from Orson.

  Hesper did not want to answer but she groaned and hit ‘accept’ anyway.

  At first Hesper couldn’t understand a word Orson was saying. The connection was awful, Orson was speaking very quickly and his accent came through much more strongly when he was agitated and talking fast. Also he was very out-of-breath and sounded like he was trying to run at the same time. Hesper just hung up on him immediately and sent a message to appear in bold text: TALK SLOWER.

  He called back. “Is this better now?”

  “Much.”

  Hesper copied McPhail in on the call because it was going to be extremely annoying and it would make it marginally less annoying if McPhail had to be annoyed by it too. And why should only her nice day be ruined by Orson? McPhail should have to have his pleasant private time absolutely wrecked, too.

  It was terrible right off the bat.

  “The doctor called in a bomb scare,” said Orson. Hesper almost just hung up on him right there. Why was a ‘for later, if we have time,’ question. “So the station will lock down soon?” she asked. “Yeah,” said Orson after some heavy breathing.

  “How long?” said Hesper. “Ask Atesthas.” There was some muffled talking.

  “He reckons three minutes?”

  “You getting this, McPhail?” asked Hesper and received a grunt in reply. “Have you got them?”

  “Aye,”

  “Are they...more than three minutes away?”

  “If they run? Atesthas, probably not. Orson, definitely,”

  “Great.” said Hesper. “Okay.”

  “I’ll get the ship ready. You get your trainers on,”

  “Ha, ha. Can you tell your little horrors to stow all the paint? I don’t want it all over my carpet if you have to make a very sharp exit.”

  Hesper noticed that all the factors seemed to have stopped painting to pay attention to the conversation. They were all hovering with paintbrushes dangling, turned towards her. “They got it,” said McPhail.

  Hesper realised Orson had been saying something while she was talking to McPhail. No matter. Very unlikely that it was important.

  “Come on!” urged Atesthas. “Faster! We need to get out of here!”

  Orson knew that they had to get out. He was already going about as fast as he could. Atesthas was motoring, almost running but keeping it to a walk so they wouldn’t look too obviously like they were trying to get away from-

  “Oh, no...” said Atesthas. He had turned around to urge Orson on. He turned back away quickly, putting his head down. “Orson. Come on. Right now. Quick. Quick,”

  “Is there someone coming?”

  Atesthas didn’t look back again. “Here. Follow me,” he said. “Stay close. Don’t look, they’re behind you. Down here-”

  The doctor must have sounded convincing because Coblentz station control had already scrambled security to hunt down Orson and Atesthas. It didn’t make sense to Orson. If he had a bomb inside him, wouldn’t they want him to get away from the station as quickly as possible? This was going to make it take longer for them to get back to the AGMG.

  Especially if the station got locked down.

  Trying to move through the Coblentz streets had been difficult enough before. Now they were trying to do it quickly and surreptitiously and that was impossible.

  Atesthas swerved down an alleyway leading off the main strip. Orson tried to follow, starting to panic as a stream of people blocked his path through the entrance.

  Ahead, Orson saw Atesthas put the brakes on suddenly, pivot and start coming back towards him. Without looking at Orson, he said “Just get back to the ship. Go. Go now,” and he shoulder-barged Orson as he passed. Orson went.

  Orson’s handheld was very helpfully showing him a map with a bright yellow line leading back to the AGMG. He heard shouts behind him but he managed to not look.

  “Okay,” said Atesthas. To himself but out loud. “Okay, fine. Come and give me a beating if that’s what we’re doing.”

  “Who the hell is that?” one of the security finks asked another. He got a shrug in reply.

  “It’s not you we’re after,” one of the guys- maybe the team leader, he had a white armband on that the others didn’t- explained helpfully. “It’s the fat guy we want,”

  “Don’t we all?” said Athesthas. He was passing a stall selling various shiny brass household objects. Was there anything vaguely weapon-like? There was: he grabbed some sort of decorative poking implement and gave it an experimental swing around. It wasn’t really heavy enough that he could imagine doing much damage with it. He threw it at one of the security guys.

  The guy had been looking away, distracted by an ice-cream shop on the other side of the street. The poking-thing cracked into the top of his plastic shield and sort of flipped over the top and bopped him on the forehead. He screamed and ducked. Atesthas frowned. “I don’t know what that was supposed to mean,” he said.

  “It means we’re gonna tear you apart, weirdo,” said one of the guards. “We just wanted the fat guy but now we get to paralyse you first.”

  “We don’t even know who you are,” added another one.

  “That’s fine, I don’t know who you are either,” said Atesthas. He was looking for a weightier poking implement. He rummaged in a metal bucket of fireplace tools and picked up two promising-looking candidates, two decorative but reasonably heavy metal rods, one in each hand. “Come on, then, let’s get to know each other.”

  He posed a little bit with the tools. “I feel like if you really wanted to hurt me you’d be doing it by now,” he said, flexing.

  “We don’t even know who you are!” groaned the team leader.

  Back on the AGMG, Pallas pointed at the street view on the screen. “Look there,” she told McPhail. “The others are following Orson now.”

  McPhail grunted.

  Orson slipped down an alleyway off the main street, trying to remember anything he’d ever seen or heard about how to lose someone who was tailing you. He...couldn’t. All he could think about was how there was allegedly a bomb in his belly and how slow he was going and how scary the guys who were chasing him looked.

  He wondered what had happened to Atesthas. For about a second. The thought crossed his mind and then he realised that he didn’t really care. All he cared about was getting himself back to the ship.

  Why couldn’t it come and get him? What was the point of having a ship if you didn’t move it, didn’t fly it about? Why should he have to go to it? It was infuriating.

  Orson crossed the street quickly and dodged down another small alleyway. Just as he crossed into the dim passage a siren suddenly blared from somewhere above him. He got such a shock he missed a step and stumbled. At that moment a shutter slammed down behind him, sealing the entrance he had just come through.

  They were locking everything down. Of course they were, because of the bomb scare. He’d been hearing the sirens from behind him for a few minutes without really registering what the warning was.

  If he heard one in front of him, that was as far as he was going.

  Atesthas didn’t get hit directly but a chunk of flying concrete from the impact caught his right forearm. It was hard enough to twist him around and it was hard enough to partially tear out a bit of the hardwear from his arm. Grunting, he ripped it the rest of the way out and threw it at the guy who had swung a hammer into the wall. The security guy got hit in the face with a flying chunk of metal trailing streamers of skin and wet red stringy stuff.

  “Thank you!” yelled Atesthas. “Thank you very much! I want all this crap out of me so- argh, hey! Wait!”

  Some other fink, not waiting for Atesthas to finish whinging, had grabbed him from behind and started strangling him.

  Orson started hustling faster, puffing, fat little legs burning. Orson lived on a station, he knew how these things worked. They had drills a few times a year and actual triggers of the lockdown system a lot more frequently than anybody liked.

  Anything vaguely threatening a hull breach would activate the securing of the entire station into multiple pressure-sealed compartments. This meant that cocky or stressed-out pilots making crash-stops could lock the whole station down for hours just by screaming up to the station too fast.

  Orson had never minded it terribly when there was a lock-down. He was always either at work or in his flat, both of which places had food and drinks and a bathroom which was about all Orson needed to be content. Lockdowns made other people very upset, though. They were a perennial issue at station council meetings.

  Many people enthusiastically promoted the idea of making the whole system far less sensitive so that it wouldn’t activate so frequently. Maybe changing the way the station assessed risk and perceived threats to itself. Maybe making the station just chill out a bit. Maybe even making it so that it took a measurable pressure drop to initiate a lockdown.

  Far fewer people, hesitantly, usually anonymously, suggested that if human-piloted delivery ships weren’t on such unforgiving schedules, maybe if the margins weren’t quite so tight, maybe if the pilots weren’t so heavily penalised for late deliveries, then they would be able to apply their brakes a little further out from the station and not approach with the attitude of missiles and make the station pee its pants a little. They compared the way human-piloted ships approached the station (alarming) to the way machine ships (unhurried) flew up to make their deliveries.

  But anyway. This wasn’t a drill, it was a real situation, and- even worse- Orson was the situation. He needed to get up, he needed to get up further levels towards the deck. He needed to find a lift, stairs, escalator- okay, a lift- before anything else got sealed off. Scanning around desperately he noticed a sign that seemed like it might be hinting at a lift. He started waddling towards it as fast as he could. He was just a few metres from what was starting to look like another alleyway- one that was still open, please, still be open. It looked like it was. He was just starting to turn to go through when he caught something moving from the corner of his eye.

  Something was...sliding up beside him. He spun around to see, turning so his back was to the wall. There was what looked like a floating black eyeball staring at him from just a few feet away. It slid closer to him. It had a glowing red circle for an iris.

  Orson didn’t notice the little sound he made as he stared at the thing. Oh no no no don’t stop me go away go away go away

  The eye glided closer to him and he panicked. There was a street-sweeper’s cart standing abandoned outside the nearest shop and Orson grabbed for the first thing he saw with a long-looking handle. He grabbed, pulled and swung and to his amazement slammed the eyeball right into the wall. The eye shattered into pieces.

  With a thrill of excitement Orson ran for the alleyway entrance, keeping a hold of the shovel he’d just acquired. Two more of the black eyeball things dropped down in front of him and Orson skidded to a stop. He swung for the eyes and they both flew straight at his face. “Aaaargh!” he yelled, ducking.

  The man in charge of the street-sweeping cart whose shovel Orson had misappropriated was sitting nearby in a shop window, taking a quick break. His name was Urek. With the sirens going off Urek had a feeling that his short break might become a longer break. He was probably about to be locked into this area of the station for a while. Fine by him.

  Urek was on his handheld, trying to find out what was going on. He wondered if it was anything to do with this fat weirdo who had just nicked his shovel. The guy looked like a workie of some sort, a labourer maybe or someone off a cargo ship. He seemed to be having a fight with a flock of small flying machines. Maybe he was trying to abscond and drones had been sent to get him back. You did hear about people trying to run away from debt management agency jobs sometimes. Maybe the guy thought this was the kind of station where you could apply for asylum from those kind of agencies. This was not that kind of station. Coblentz was the kind of station where if you tried to run away from the cargo ship transporting you to a labour camp where you were about to spend the next four years digging foundations for accomodation blocks to house more workers like you who had defaulted on their student loans or medical debt, they would lock the place down and call out security to find you and drag you back to your ship.

  Speaking of which, it looked like the station needed more security to deal with the current situation. Urek’s employment program, HustleManager, was alerting him that he could earn 2.50 more an hour to work as station security than as a station street sweeper. The offer was for today only and it expired in the next ten minutes. Would Urek like to quit his current job and start immediately as a station security officer? All he had to do was click ‘accept’ and HustleManager would take care of everything, including finding a new medical insurance plan for the day that would cover his now slightly reduced risk of injury (street sweeping was more hazardous than policing, mostly because street sweepers didn’t get body armour and a nightstick).

  “Settle!” ordered one of the eyeballs in a familiar voice. It was hovering just by his head, clutching his shovel with a little arm that had unfolded from its side. “It’s McPhail. McPhail. Why are you trying to kill my factors?”

  Orson looked warily at the flying eyeballs. “The lights aren’t usually red,” he said. “I didn’t recognise them,”

  “I’m trying to help you, idiot.”

  “I panicked.” said Orson. “It was being scary. And I really need to go-”

  “Not until you pick that up”

  Orson looked behind him. “Are you kidding?”

  Urek was currently still a street-cleaner so he was clearing up the remains of the robot that the fat guy had smashed all over the pavement. He thought he probably ought to turn the pieces in to station command. The robot had talked, he’d heard it. Urek suspected that 1) the fat guy had something to do with the current emergency situation and 2) the machines he had with him were illegal intelligent machines.

  So Urek was sweeping up the robot parts and putting them into a small plastic bag instead of dumping them into the bin on his cleaning cart.

  He was concentrating on his careful sweeping but he became aware of someone sidling up nearby. He looked up reluctantly. It was the workie. Urek was immediately a little nervous. The guy was short and round but he had looked pretty strong when he killed this robot thing and it seemed like he might be involved in something dodgy. Urek tilted his head curiously. “Yes?”

  The highly visible guy seemed anxious. “Can I get that bag of...stuff off of you, please?” he asked.

  “Huh?”

  “The, uh…,” The fat guy pointed at the bag of machine crumbs. “The stuff in the bag. Could I have it, please? This will seem strange but I know the guy who owned that flying thing, the guy who was...remote-controlling it, and he’s really pissed off with me for smashing his toy. He wants the bits and pieces back.”

  Urek considered. “Why?”

  “Oh, he says maybe some of the parts will be re-useable,” said the fat workman. “But honestly?”

  He leaned towards Urek conspiratorially. “I think it’s just ‘cause he’s angry with me. He wants to make me pick up all the parts myself.”

  Urek was pretty sure the guy was lying but he didn’t really care. If he gave the bag of stuff to him then it was out of his hands and he didn’t have to trouble himself with taking it over to station command. “Sure,” he said. “I don’t think you’ll be able to do anything with it, but here-”

  Urek gave the plastic bag a little shake to settle the crap into the bottom and closed the seal along the top, pressing the air gently out of the bag. The fat guy looked pleased, face brightening. “Thanks, man.” he said. “He might not kill me now, just hurt me a bit. This is really going to help, seriously.”

  Urek went to hand the bag over to the workie but just at that moment Hustlemanager sent him an alert over his neural. His insurance had just been confirmed and he was now cleared to stop working as a street cleaner and start his shift as a station security operative.

  Urek snatched back the bag of evidence and tucked it securely into one of the pockets on his bodywarmer. The fat suspect’s face fell. “What are you doing? I thought you said I could have that?”

  “You can have it,” said Urek, “Once station command have examined it and determined that it’s legal for you to have on this station. I’ll take you to station command justnow.”

  “No,” said Orson. “I don’t have time, I need to go,”

  “You can’t leave while the station is under an emergency lock-down. There’s been an alert put out about a man matching your description that station command want to talk to. I’ll take you over to station command and you can ask about keeping your broken factor and see if you’re the perp- if you’re the person they’re looking for.”

  “I really don’t have time,” insisted Orson.

  “The sooner station command find their man the sooner they’ll lift the emergency status.” said Urek. “If you assist them with their enquiries you can help yourself to get away faster,”

  He stepped closer to Orson and reached out to take his wrist. “Come on, I’ll take you,” he said.

  One of McPhail’s factors did something to the panel by the door and the indicator light changed from red to green. The doorway opened into complete blackness.

  The factors flew through the doorway and vanished. On the other side could be anything, thought Orson. It could be literally nothing. He had grown up on small stations. He knew that you didn’t just walk through a door that could lead into a void. Out of atmosphere, out of pressure. On the other side of the doorway the factors lit up like little lanterns, flaring their ring-lights to illuminate the void.

  It was just a corridor, full of what seemed perfectly breathable air and puddles of fluff on the ground and nothing else.

  “Just follow them,” said McPhail through the factors. “Nearly there.”

  Orson nodded and gave the factor under his hand a slight squeeze. The door slid shut behind them as they entered the corridor.

  “Can probably chuck the shovel,” said McPhail.

  “Don’t want to,” said Orson.

  “It’s covered in blood,” said McPhail. “Looks suspicious,”

  “I’m with three flying robots also covered in blood, I don’t think ditching the shovel would make that much difference,”

  “We could pretend the factors are arresting you if anyone comes along,” said McPhail. “Unless you want another fight?”

  Orson sighed and put the shovel down, leaning it against the wall. He really didn’t.

  “Do you think we killed that guy back there?” he asked quietly as he followed the factors.

  “No,” said McPhail through the machines. “I think you killed him,”

  “Really?” gasped Orson, horrified. “You think-”

  “No!” scoffed McPhail. “Don’t be daft..”

  “Don’t say things like that,” grumbled Orson. “I don’t want to kill anybody,”

  “Hopefully you won’t,” said McPhail. “Okay, just on the right there should be a ladder…”

  “Noooo…” groaned Orson.

  On the AGMG’s flight deck McPhail and Pallas were sitting in the pilots’ seats, staring at the displays on the console. They barely looked around as Orson staggered in. “Got that factor you broke?” asked McPhail.

  Orson gasped for breath, leaning in the doorway.

  “Are you okay?” asked Pallas.

  “He’s fine, he just had to do some exercise,” said McPhail. Orson glowered and gasped.

  “You weren’t even running,” said Pallas. Orson wanted to say something about not commenting on other people’s aerobic fitness when you didn’t even have to breathe but he was too out-of-breath. “I meant about the bomb,” said Pallas.

  “Oh, yeah…” said Orson. He’d forgotten about that.

  “You’re not concerned,” said McPhail. Orson looked up at him, hands on his knees as he tried to get his breath back. “I dunno,” he said. “Should get...a second opinion.”

  “A second opinion?” asked McPhail. “You don’t believe Dr Westenberg?”

  “She has...books about...crystals,” panted Orson.

  He pushed himself out of the doorway and started crossing the deck towards them.

  “Where’s the factor?” asked McPhail again. Orson fished the plastic bag out of the side pocket of his shorts and resisted the urge to throw it at McPhail. He handed it to the other man as he walked up to the console. McPhail took the bag casually and sat it on the console. “What’s this?” asked Orson, looking at the screen.

  “We’re watching Captain Allan fight,” said Pallas. Orson leaned on the console, breathing heavily. On the display screen he could see a small figure in pyjamas- Atesthas, presumably- hitting a navy blue-clad helmeted figure with a clear plastic shield. Another navy blue helmet guy was punching Atesthas. Atesthas swung the shield around and knocked him over with it.

  “Is anyone... going to...help him?” asked Orson.

  “Hesper’s en-route,” said McPhail. “She smelled a punch-up,”

  On the screen Orson could see Atesthas was fighting with three- no, four- of seven guards that had been chasing. The other three were lying on the ground. “Whoa,” said Orson. He pointed at the screen. “What?”

  McPhail grunted. “Captain fried them. Must have adjuncts”

  Orson thought about the pictures he’d seen in the doctor’s book about neural adjunct maladies and cringed. Atesthas appeared to have gotten a couple of side-handle batons off of the guards and he was laying into them with gusto. “Guess he can... take care...of himself,”

  “Hm,” said McPhail. One of the security guys cracked Atesthas on the side of the knee and suddenly he was on the ground with them all piling on top of him. “Oh,” said Orson. “Good try, though,”

  Just then a bulky, fast-moving figure barrelled into frame and straight into the pile of struggling men. “Oh, good, Hesper!” said Orson. One of the security guys was flung horizontally out of the scrum like a flying starfish. Another one suddenly started having a seizure, body going rigid. “Tried to use a taser” remarked McPhail. Hesper hauled Atesthas up off the ground with one hand while using the other to hold off a security nark who seemed enthusiastic to fight with one or both of them. Once Atesthas had his feet under him Hesper let go of the enthusiastic guy and left him to attack Atesthas while she dived into a couple of fast-approaching shields. Atesthas grabbed the guy’s arm one-handed, pulled him in and slammed the heel of his hand into the guy’s chin. Then he kicked the guy’s feet out from under him. He hit the ground like a pallet of bricks. Atesthas swung around with his fists back up, ready for the next one. Orson was not impressed, because violence was not cool.

  “Who would...win..in a fight...between Hesper and...Atesthas?” asked Orson, gazing fascinated as the two of them laid waste to the unfortunate security guards despatched to arrest them.

  “The record is 7 to 5 Hesper’s way,” said Pallas. McPhail nodded slowly. “Atesthas’s faster, Hesper’s got the edge strength wise and she’s got the advantage of not being a complete idiot,”

  “Atesthas has...military….training, though,”

  “So does Hesper,” said McPhail.

  “She did...like...officer...training,” said Orson. “Atesthas was...a...soldier,”

  “You give the military too much credit.” said McPhail. “Actually training the grunts would take time and effort. They just graft a bunch of scrap onto them and shove a bypass in their head so that they can tell the guys’ bodies what to do without their stupid brains getting in the way.”

  “Oh,” said Orson. “And all Atesthas’ military stuff is-”

  “Wrecked,” said McPhail.

  Atesthas was slumped on the floor in a broken-looking heap.

  “I think they’re done,” said Pallas. There were seven uniformed bodies strewn about on the ground.

  “Does this happen a lot?” Orson asked. “Hesper having to save the Captain, I mean?”

  “Not really,” said McPhail.“When is the last time Atesthas was in a fight?” he asked Pallas. The robot considered the question.

  “Do you mean like with someone who was trying to arrest him or someone he was trying to make friends with?”

  Hesper hauled Atesthas to his feet. Atesthas threw up. People watched warily but kept their distance. They could tell that it was nothing they wanted to get involved in. Hesper looked up into the camera of the factor that had been filming them.

  “You’d better be ready to move when we get back,” she said. “And if Orson made it back to the ship he’d better be in storage underneath. I don’t want whatever he’s got inside him on board. You hear me?”

  “I hear you,” said McPhail.

  “What?” said Orson.