Then we were free to jump to Triga at best possible speed.
Twenty years ago, Triga had been the near-center of the Empire, in physical terms. It was still the near center of the known worlds, because new colonies had sprung up along all edges of the old Empire’s borders.
Maybe that was why Jai Van Veen had chosen to live here. Or maybe it was the cosmopolitan bustle of a commercial hub at full volume that appealed to him. He’d spent more than a lifetime on Imperial Shield outposts and far-flung, isolated settlements, which was where the Empire had liked to keep their most sensitive projects.
Anderson Marlow had similarly been locked up behind the walls of a hidden city, Sarov, where the utterly secret work on the crescent ships had taken place, but I thought the reason he chose to live on Triga was far more simple: Jai lived there.
Lyssa was assigned a landing bay on the planet side of the stellar city, away from the lovely, welcoming yellow sun. But that didn’t mean she was light-deprived, for even the landing bays on Triga featured transparent carbon steel walls and a partial roof with their distinctive triangle-patterned structures running through them, which bathed the landing bay with glorious light.
While Lyssa donned her faux headset and dickered with the landing bay director over refueling charges and landing fees, I contacted Jai Van Veen.
He was walking somewhere, for the background shifted and jolted. He lifted his brow. “You found Mace?”
“Not even close. We just arrived on Triga, Jai. We need to speak to you.”
The frown that had once been permanently carved into his forehead reappeared briefly. “I see.” He didn’t ask for details, for which I was thankful. “You know where to find me.” He shut down the channel.
I argued Vara into letting me put a collar and leash on her, and Dalton had a similar argument with Darb. Both parawolves relented when we mentioned Coal, their sibling. The leashes were useless as constraining devices. Either wolf could have dragged even Dalton off his feet if they had taken off. The leashes gave the appearance of control, which reassured the public, while the real control was the parawolves’ obedience and trust in us.
While Vara and Darb fidgeted and scratched at their collars, the three of us—Fiori, Dalton and I—walked across the city to the salubrious suburb where Jai’s house was located.
Triga didn’t use domes. Instead, enormous support pillars rose up into trumpet shapes which supported the very high roof. The struts running through the clear roof looked fine and delicate from down on the floor, but they provided the structure the roof needed to hold itself up. And they looked pretty.
Their triangular patterns were cast as shadows on the floor we walked across, weaving between shoppers and residents, tourists and travelers.
The crowds thinned as we approached the canyon. The hardwearing floor turned softer underfoot, until it felt as though we were walking upon earth. Ahead was a long suspension footbridge which spanned the canyon—a man-made valley with a large green lake at the bottom. The steep sides of the elongated valley were lined with residential buildings, most of them apartment blocks which climbed up the cliffs in layers.
We crossed over the bridge and I glanced to the right, for that was a view I would never tire of. At the end of the valley, the city walls dropped to the sea, and through the carbon steel, Triga’s sun blazed, making the water glitter, and every window in every apartment glint.
Jai’s house was a single level cantilevered building near to the top of the valley, and nearly three hundred meters along from the bridge. We found the path to the house and zig-zagged down to the entrance. I noticed three layers of security shielding, the last one an active scan.
The door opened as we approached it. Vara gave a soft yip and dashed to the door, tearing the leash out of my hand. Darb followed her, his leash bouncing along behind him. They sprinted inside, their toenails scratching at the hard surface.
I winced.
“If he didn’t know we were here already despite three scans, he certain will in a few seconds,” Dalton pointed out.
We stepped inside. The coolness of the air in here told me how warm the air was outside, baked as it was in good, strong yellow sunlight for most of the day.
The house was nearly all one room, with a few auxiliary rooms on the cliff side. The cantilevering allowed the house to thrust out into the valley. It had been built to take advantage of the view. The front of the house was all floor to ceiling windows, and half of each side wall was, too.
A sea of faux wood floor gleamed with red tones, broken only by islands of greenery and the occasional rug. A bank of modular seating faced the windows, and a fully automated desk was tucked away by the far side wall. Over by the doors on that side, Vara and Darb were sniffing and inspecting.
On the side wall closest to the door were kitchen facilities. A dining table separated them from the rest of the room.
Behind a moveable screen near the back wall, I glimpsed the corner of a bed.
It was an oasis. Peaceful. Silent. Soothing. And the view made it perfect.
“Oh, wow…” Fiori breathed.
Dalton sighed. “I’d think a lot smarter, too, if I could look out at that while I was doing it.”
“It’s the lack of distractions, not the view, that allows clear thinking,” Jai said, from behind us.
A black fur ball streaked past us and shot across the room, his toes clipping, heading for Vara and Darb. Coal only slowed at the last minute, enough to bunt his head
