They caught me outside the Starburst Cluster, running hot and hauling a load of booze destined for Cemelar. You would think I was running drugs for how they came down on me! But to be fair they did have a list of transgressions to my name, and a hefty bounty. It’s a shame I couldn’t turn myself in for that kind of cred.

  -Log C-63, Te’chik

  “And Maggie, it’s good to see you again too.” Doc Tomas’s voice pulled Maggie into the present, and she stared at him. How was he here? Why was he here?

  “Does it matter why or how? Did you hear what they said? They think it was some kind of accident, you’re off the hook for that bitchy furballs death!”

  “I still killed her though, off the hook or not, I killed her. I stabbed her.” Maggie looked down at her hands, the galaxy spiral sparkling innocently on her palm. She had expected something more dramatic, blood or something to show what she had done. Isn’t that where the phrase red-handed came from?

  “There are no stab wounds on her. You didn’t kill her Maggie.” Theodrakis said. He glanced at Tomas, shaking his head slightly. “She just keeps insisting that she killed her.”

  “I hear that.” Tomas sighed, letting his hands dangle between his knees. She didn’t seem a danger to herself or others, not right now. But she was certainly under a great deal of stress. Her face was pale, and she was shaking. “Maggie, do you trust your family?”

  What the hell kind of question was that? Maggie frowned, straightening slightly on the couch. “Of course I do. Mostly. I mean, sure they lied about my father for years, and apparently they’re all aliens or something.” As she spoke, she started to doubt the trust she had in them, trailing off to look at the little group doubtfully. “But they haven’t lied about the big things, right?”

  “We haven’t lied about the big things. We love you, and want you to be safe. Sometimes that has meant lying about things like where exactly we’re all from, but that was all we lied about.” Nora said softly.

  “If we hadn’t, things would have been a lot more complicated, a lot worse for all of us. Think about how people would react if you went to school and told them your daddy was an alien space captain? The calls from your teachers would have been awkward to say the least.” Electra said with a smile. She patted one of Maggie’s hands.

  “There, you can trust them, right? We can agree on that?” Tomas asked, his voice calm and coaxing.

  Slowly, Maggie nodded, a little bit of the tension easing away.

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  “Good. Theo has seen stab wounds before, and says there were none on S’il Vala Reshka’i. And from the welts on your skin, I can tell the energy going through whatever device she was using was too much to be safe. And that’s for a human of your size. It is much more likely that whatever she was doing burned out her brain, than you killed her by stabbing her in your mind. Ux’thu I’m sure will have someone look her over and verify that.” Tomas stood up to his full height, smiling softly.

  “They’re really stuck on her brain being burned up. Could be legit.” Te’chik admitted, and Maggie relaxed just a little bit more. But she held the tablet close, staring down at the ground. She remembered it so clearly! It had felt so real. Her stomach turned as she remembered the feeling of the dagger plunging into the Silvarian’s chest.

  “It felt so real.” She whispered. Was she overreacting? Was it really just an accident with that horrible machine?

  “I know Maggie-my-love, but it wasn’t real. You have to remember that nothing that machine made you see was real. At the most it was just memories or dreams based on someone long dead.” Nora said.

  Doctor Tomas nodded. “Exactly, now lets get you some water, and you can just stay here while we handle things.”

  Maggie just nodded, staring off into space numbly. Tomas stood up and stepped aside with Theodrakis, speaking softly. “Will there be a problem with us being here?”

  “I’ll make sure there isn’t.” Theodrakis said. “It’s going to be complicated, but I think we’ll be able to convince them you’ve turned on the Freedom Coalition since you’ve fled them, and sent Maggie to us.”

  Tomas nodded, and their voices faded into the background, joining the general hum of quiet conversation around her. Nora and Electra stayed close, talking about nothing important, and Robin grew to his full size, moving just a couple steps away to talk to Theseus. Maggie let herself relax into the flow of conversation, had it really been an accident? Or was she a murderer?

  “You ain’t a murderer either way. If nothing else, it was self defense.” Maggie glanced up, catching a glimpse of Te’chik lounging against a pillar carved to look like a tree, one of many that decorated the garden room. The vision lasted slightly longer than it had before Reshka’i connected her to the machine, but she still disappeared within a couple blinks. Maybe the thing really had fried the Silvarian’s brain.

  Maybe it had fried Maggie’s a bit too.

  “Ya ain’t brain-fried. Maybe you’re just a bit more in-tune with the Key though. You feel a little less like a ghost now.” Te’chik said thoughtfully.

  Maggie let out a short laugh. She felt less like a ghost? “This coming from someone who died centuries ago.”

  The comment brought looks of concern from the others, but the only comment came from Theseus, as tactful as ever. “Did she go nuts? Who’s she talking to?”

  “Memories of previous Key Holders I guess. She’s not nuts, right now she’s just scared and stressed.” Robin frowned, his eyes fixed on Maggie. She glanced up at him, and actually smiled, just a little, before turning her attention back to Te’chik. She didn’t dare say it, not here, where other people might be listening in. But she thought that maybe she could feel which direction the ship was in. There was the faintest of tugs in the back of her mind, a sense of direction and a distance that was too big for her to truly comprehend. Her gaze drifted in that direction, and she found herself staring out a window at the clear blue sky.

  It was weird, she could almost pretend that she was on Earth again, just in a fancy resort instead of at home.