Kailee Pohl, who dated Blieggs for a while, would always bore us with long accounts of her incredibly vivid dreams. I kind of wished that I had paid more attention to those stories.
Possibility number two was related to possibility one, but it was a little more ominous. What if those memories had been implanted into me? As part of my work for Beck Salvage, impersonating my father, I had regular sessions with Aman Piettow and his accelerated learning team. If Piettow could implant factual information into my brain, who was to say he couldn’t plant fictional information there as well? The past eleven days could just be an AL implant.
But why?
The final possibility was the weirdest. What if I had actually experienced the events of the past eleven days? What if—somehow—the Levirion had returned us to our own galaxy?
My mind raced as I considered the ramifications of this. Why would Mr. Jeris—and, in fact, all the systems in my domus—have been modified to make me believe it was July 2nd?
If someone wanted to keep our expedition secret, why wouldn’t they fabricate a more likely scenario? It would be much more convincing to leave the timeline as it was and just create an explanation for my apparent memory issues. I could have had a skimmer accident easily enough.
All this conjecture made my brain hurt. And it was frustrating because I didn’t have enough information. What I really needed to do was to make some calls.
The first person I called was Lirala. Her face popped up in the overlay, and she didn’t look happy to see me.
At the best of times, Lir had a naturally cruel-looking face, despite her countless cosme treatments to make it rounder and softer. There was something in her eyes, a hardness, that couldn’t be altered by surgical procedures.
“So,” she said. “You finally called to apologize?”
“Apologize?”
She hung up on me.
I called her back.
“What?” She glared at me.
“Lir, listen a sec—”
“I don’t have time for this, Jannigan.”
“Something happened.”
“Yeah, I know something happened. You’re an asshole.”
“I mean, with me. Something happened to me.”
“If you say that it was a joke, I’m going to come over there and cut your fucking—”
“Lirala! Stop!” I took a deep breath. “Something happened to me, health-wise.”
“Bullshit. With your high-end genetics, nothing’s ever going to happen to you.”
“Well, something did. With my memory. I need your help. Can you come over?”
“No, I fucking can’t come over. I’m on my way to brunch with Monelle and Eveily. Eve’s got a new face and I haven’t seen it yet.”
“Cancel.”
“No way, Jannigan. Especially after what you did to me last night.”
“Whatever I did, I’m sorry, Lir. I’m really sorry.”
“I don’t believe you, Jannigan.”
“Let’s talk about it. Come over after your brunch.”
“I thought you had to go to work.”
“No,” I said unconvincingly. Of course, I had no recollection of needing to go to work. “Come over.”
“I’ll think about it.”
“Please, Lir. I need you.” I knew that need was one of her trigger words.
“I said that I’ll think about it.”
“Thank you.”
“I’m not agreeing to anything, Jannigan.”
“I know.”
“But if I do come over, there’s going to be a price,” she said ominously. “Some things that I want to do—that you have…resisted.”
“I understand.”
“Good.” She broke the connection.
I didn’t want to think about Lir’s conditions right now. Whatever they were, I’d be able to deal with them—if I was sufficiently medicated. Best to put it out of my mind.
I was ready to make my next call. To my uncle Wallace at Beck Salvage.
His assistant Verity appeared on the overlay. She had only been with the company for about six months, and I didn’t really know her as well as some of the other employees.
“Hello, sir.”
“Hello, Verity. Is my uncle around?”
“He’s in that SPDR meeting until the end of the day. I can leave a message that you called. Is it urgent?”
“No, not urgent, but I would like to speak with him.”
“Of course, Mr. Beck.”
“C’mon, Verity. You know you’re supposed to call me Jannigan.” I smiled at her.
“Sorry, Jannigan. I’ll make sure your uncle knows you called.”
“Thank you.” I was about to end the call when I got an idea. “There is one other thing you might be able to help me with. I’m trying to reach one of our expedition team members.”
“Oh?”
It was definitely an unusual request. I never interacted with our expedition staff. Well, until eleven days ago. “Her name is Ana-Zhi Agrada. Can you track her down for me?”
“Sure, let me check the roster. One second, Mr.—” She caught herself. “Jannigan.”
I gave her my most winning smile. “Thank you, Verity.”
While she ran through her datapad screens, I pretended to look busy, checking my Aura offscreen. Less than a minute later, Verity announced that Ana-Zhi had been located on Tor-Betree.
That was where she had been eleven days ago, preparing for the mission.
“Send me her contact info and the routing data, please.”
“Will do. Is there anything else I can help you with?”
“Yes, are we launching any expeditions from Tor-Betree in the next week or so?”
I noticed that she pursed her lips and looked down to the right.
“Um…” she said, clearly not sure if she should answer that question.
“That’s okay. I’ll ask my uncle. Thank you, Verity.”
“My pleasure.” She looked relieved to get off the call.
I went back inside, refilled my moxa cup, and wandered into my lounge. I was very curious about Ana-Zhi, but before I could make the call, Mr. Jeris wheeled in.
“How are you feeling, sir?”
“I’m feeling fine.”
“May I check a few things? Blood oxygen levels? Heart rate?”
“Why not?” I let him do his thing for a few minutes, and then when he was done, I ordered the med bot out of the room.
“Don’t you want to know what I found?” he asked.
“Not really.”
“Hmph!” He did a fair approximation of sounding miffed, then wheeled out of the room.
It was odd. I had
