I didn’t mean to laugh. It just came right up, without my permission, a giggle caught somewhere between mirthful and hysterical. There had not been a tragedy on Badenia. This was not a replay of the horror on Aeolia. Because, after all, there was no need for anything so dramatic.
I understood now why Parthenope so badly wanted to find Vanguard. It knew the worst of their secrets. And it had no reason to keep them to itself.
All Vanguard had to do was leak key pieces of information. Hints of Mary Ping’s and Parthenope’s plans. Details of Parthenope’s ongoing fraud. The names of everybody who had not known they were participating in a treaty violation. Vanguard was clever. It would know what to say, and who to say it to, what seeds to plant that would lead reporters and lawyers and OSA regulators to dig up the rest. I didn’t know exactly what information it had access to, and maybe the full scale of what Parthenope had planned was not public yet, but I would have happily wagered a month’s wages on the outer systems news media needing only a day or two to put together the big picture.
Van Arendonk was right. They were going to ask for my help. I ignored the butcher doc’s ramblings to lie down on the floor again. I stared at the ceiling and smiled and thought about all the different ways I would tell them to go fuck themselves.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Writing and editing a book when the world is falling apart around us is not a particularly easy thing to do, but it helps to have a friend who understands just how outrageous of a clusterfuck the whole writing and publishing process can be. I want to thank Audrey Coulthurst for going above and beyond what a friend should ever be asked to do in the service of fictional space murders. Without her thoughtful editing, patient hand-holding, tireless cheerleading, and honest commiseration, this book would be nothing more than a messy collection of half-formed scenes and bad ideas. I desperately needed the support, and she provided it with exactly the right amount of creative cussing.
Thank you as well to Leah Thomas, Lynnea Fleming, Matthew Slote, and Pat Russo, who formed my pandemic sanity pod and kept things from getting too terribly bleak when the days blended together and time lost all meaning.
I also want to thank all of my readers, and that means every one of you, from those of you who picked this book up on a whim to those who have followed me as I’ve jumped wildly from genre to genre over the past few years. You are literally everything that makes this crazy endeavor worthwhile. Thank you.
Photo © 2015 by Jessica Hilt
Kali Wallace studied geology and earned a PhD in geophysics before she realized she enjoyed inventing imaginary worlds more than she liked researching the real one. She is the author of science fiction, fantasy, and horror novels for adults, teens, and children, as well as a number of short stories and essays. After spending most of her life in Colorado, she now lives in southern California.
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