Surf

but before anyone could draw she was at the chair of the outpost's commander, her gloved hand lightly laid under his chin, across his neck, above the silver embroidery of a jacket nearly the same as her own. There were three other men in the room, all frozen where they stood, assessing, waiting.

“Who are you?” the commander barked.

“You don't remember me, Karilene?” she said.

He stared at her face, then at the jacket she wore. “I don't know you.”

She hesitated, then reached up and peeled off the biomask she'd worn for nearly half a year, nearly coming to accept that face, the face of “Ms. Park,” as her own.

The commander stared, and his gaze lost none of its sharpness, but after a moment the single “Ah” that passed his lips was like the last, faint breath from a dying man. He straightened, his arms folded carefully, fingers entwined, on the console board in front of him. “Bariele. You've grown into that jacket at long last, I see. You've come for revenge.” It was statement, not question.

“No,” she said. “Business.”

“You're an assassin, then?”

“A facilitator. In this case, the difference is minor.”

“Who sent you? Not Glaszerstrom, surely?”

“No, not them.”

“Then who?”

“You were in someone's way, and presented them with a difficulty they wanted resolved.”

He laughed. “My brother and I built Aurora out here in the Sfazili Barrens so that we would not be in anyone's way, and no one would be in ours. You know that.”

“And yet.”

“The ambush was cleverly done. I hope you got a good price.”

“I did.”

“He'll rebuild Outpost One, even if it takes years and years. It's not like him to let anything go. And he'll hunt you across the entire Multiworlds if he has to.”

“And I expect he'll find me, sooner and closer than that.”

As if sensing that something was about to happen, the others in the room began to shift and move, but before anyone could act she'd grabbed the short handle protruding from her pack, drawn out the thin, sharp blade that lived there, and moved it down in one swift, graceful motion. The old man jerked twice in his seat and then was still.

A young man toward the back of the room let out a cry, fumbling for his pistol, and abandoning her blade where it was she drew a small, cruel knife from the sleeve of her suit and skewered him through the neck from across the room. “Anyone else?” she asked, unholstering at last her own pistol. The remaining men stared at her angrily but relinquished their weapons. “Neither of you are half the man Karilene was. If you want to live, leave this room now and get off this station.”

She stood, blade in one hand, pistol in the other, as the two men walked carefully around her and out. “When you report what happened here,” she told the second man, “be sure to tell my father I send my regards.” Then she closed and sealed the door.

Removing her jacket, she laid it over the old man's body like a shroud, or a calling card, or perhaps both. Where she was going she could not take it, and she knew — and he would know — that she left it only because she'd be back for it.

“It's done,” she said into her suit mic.

[The fighters have turned and are heading back to the outpost at top burn, and there's activity at the Enclave itself,] Omi said. [Not to rush you, but you need to get out of there.]

“I'm on it.” She sat at Karilene's console and slid in the small chip. Immediately systems began shutting down and scrapping themselves as the Outpost's general evacuation alarm sounded. She positioned her last three EMP mines beside the console and set the failsafe to detonate if they were interfered with. In a short while, the entire base would be defenseless, uninhabitable, scrap. It would be abandoned until it could be secured and rebuilt, which wouldn't happen until Aurora's warlord had made some determination of who had sent her. And that was something he would never resolve.

The same paranoia that would keep him away from this border until he understood what had happened here was now her own way out. She went to one wooden panel, felt around the trim until her fingers found the tiny catch, and the panel swung open. From there, metal rungs set into the narrow tube led her up and into the very top of the station where a small ship lay cocooned as insurance against the worst.

The escape craft had dust on the console but was fully charged, waiting. She left the outpost in a roar of speed only seconds ahead of the EMP explosion that crippled the station.

Setting the tiny ship on a wide arching course for the far side of Beserai, she engaged the auto?pilot. By the time the Auroran pursuers caught up and blasted the ship to pieces she'd long since abandoned it as well, floating curled in a ball in space, invisible.

Finally, far behind and away from the furious activity, the Rooan herd caught up to her, enveloped her, carried her along.

The Space Turd felt cramped and foreign when she climbed back into it. Cardin was still banging on the hatch at random intervals with little enthusiasm. After checking on the soundly asleep Ceen and Vikka — utterly ambivalent now to them — she sat herself down at the helm, slid the life support controls back up to full, and turned back on the gravity generators. She slowed the ship and changed its course; in a few seconds it would begin to fall behind and away from the herd. Last, she reactivated Cardin's intercom and sensors, a gesture she could only think of as recompense for the use and misuse of his ship. And because it didn't matter anymore.

She flipped the hatch bolt with one foot, toed it open; it was still dark in the cabin, dark enough to hide her, but she could see the professor's face in the dim light of his computer, the lines of fear etched in it rendering him a stranger.

“Ms. Park?”

“Your handheld,” she said, and dropped the unit down to him.

“Ceen should wake up and let you out in a few hours, and then you can go home. In the meantime, collect what data you can.”

“But… Aurora…”

“You don't need to worry about Aurora, Professor.” And she closed and locked the hatch again.

She peeled off Ceen's patch, throwing it in the ship's flash?recycler. Vikka she left as she was; it was up to Ceen to decide if he wanted to listen to her the entire trip back or leave her asleep.

Her suit was fully re?charged. Time to leave the Turd, pick up Omi, and collect payment. She left the airlock one last time; the Turd was still on auto?pilot, but would soon diverge from the herd as the Rooan changed trajectories again for the slingshot pass around Beserai. Her pickup rendezvous was arranged for the far side.

She moved through the herd, jumping from one giant, rough body to another as if she was a stone skipping across a lake, until she found one with a small silver sphere taped to the underside, just under the nose.

<1 still itch.>Turquoise said.

“Yeah, yeah. Omi, tell him to hang on.”

She peeled off the tape, held the sphere up beside her, and let it go in space. Its single blue lens blinked at her.

[About time.]

Large rippling shades of blue moved up and down the body of the Rooan. [The big guy is happy, too.]

The Rooan flashed another sequence of blue. “I didn't catch that,” Bari said.

[Oh, sorry, I was looking the wrong way,] Omi said. The sphere turned, flashed a sequence of lights at the Rooan, who flashed back.

<Thank you,>Turquoise said through Omi's translator.<The herd has given you Rooan names, in thanks for your assistance. Bari, it will honor us to be allowed to call you ####. Omicron, if #### does not suit you, I don't know what will.>

“Uh… I didn't catch that.”