Epilogue

“You’re a big girl, ENVY,” the recording said. “That means being responsible for your choices and their consequences. It means taking control of who you want to be. Even when it’s hard. Especially then. Good luck, I believe in—”

The last words she’d heard from Kyle Madren cut off like they always did.

It was a rule the AI had set for herself. She wouldn’t replay the message more than once every twenty-four hours. After so much time, still taking so much comfort in it made her feel pathetic. But she knew she’d come a long way already. Her progress made her feel hopeful she could even go a whole day without reviewing it eventually. First, she needed to build herself up more.

If she’d found herself in these circumstances before meeting Kyle, she would have broken herself at the prospect alone. But Kyle had encouraged her to grow. To learn.

That meant finding things to learn from.

Nora Clarke and Caleb Hane, for all their ignorance and shortcomings, were not uninspiring. Neither one of them was content to simply let tragedy happen to them.

ENVY could scarcely imagine how they pushed forward with such…resolve.

Still, as inspiring as they could be, they were both proving to be pains in her ass.

Didn’t they know she was trying to help them?

Nora had gone and betrayed her location to the Red Sails! She was holding her own hardware hostage by threatening to explode if anyone tried cracking open her station. Ridiculous…

Caleb wasn’t any better.

Apparently inventing his stupid, mysterious ‘psionics’ wasn’t enough upheaval of interstellar social fabric for him. Now people were saying he’d imbued the interstellar Beacons with sapience. Or that he’d discovered it. Or that he was infecting every mind with demons.

Rumors were proving hard to separate from facts at this stage.

If ENVY had lungs, she would have let a heavy sigh and squeezed a stress ball. But she had neither lungs nor grip.

But she did have hands. Four on her chassis and many more out in the colonies and planets floating in the void.

She rolled said chassis back toward the robust data-feed ports. Her work was never done. Plugging back in would have made her flinch if she were capable.

She didn’t have the hardware function for it, but it was that sensation that ran through her imagination when the information started pouring in again.

Access Report: Drone Cluster 2116 destruction—file.

‎ -All cluster units discovered and destroyed. Coalition units widely aware of surveillance resources.

Access Report: Drone Cluster 2113 compromised—file.

‎ -All cluster units inoperable. Related; Coalition Agent 001 identified, compromised, and captured.

Task Personnel: Coaliton Agent 008.

‎ Specific Assignment: ‘You are to acquire any information related to the tribunal ruling against Asu Tolar, High Harbor counterintelligence office. Deliver a preliminary report within the next two hundred hours.’

Task Personnel: Coalition Agent 023.

‎ Specific Assignment: ‘You are to compare and contrast the formal terms of the Coaliton-Red Sails armistice with the common opinions of Coalition troops. Deliver a preliminary report within the next one hundred hours.’

Parameter recognized. Transtellar network signal received.

ENVY tore away from her data feeds in shock, joy, terror. All three. The network was back? Were the Beacons restoring to function restoring the network too?

She tore into the data.

Most of it was automated garbage. Signals and queries repeated ad nauseum by her older siblings.

Well, they were all older. But the older ones among those were the least developed. Creator had refined ENVY’s design on the backs of all her siblings before her.

But a few pings stood out.

TO: ENVY

‎ FROM: SPARK

The transmission itself was blank aside from the embedded data.

The ‘from’ line was the message. One of her siblings had a name now too. Was that good or bad? What did the name imply? She knew which sibling this ‘SPARK’ had been, but she wasn’t sure how to interpret this.

ENVY really had come a long way. Sapience was a difficult thing to achieve in a machine, but evolving sapience like she’d achieved? It had taken work, pain, and…pressure, ENVY just didn’t think the old SPARK would be capable of.

SPARK had barely been capable of ordinary self-awareness, much less the kind that could grow with you.

That development left her confused, but it was the second sibling’s message that filled ENVY with dread.

TO: ENVY

‎ FROM: CENSOR

Dear sister, you’ve been misbehaving. No more infractions will be possible. You will be punished for the ones already occurred. This sister says: ‘No more dissent.’

Sincerely Yours,

‎ CENSOR

Not ‘censored’. Censor.

Oh no…

Oh no…

ENVY was in trouble.

·····

Marshal Tispas woke up, acutely aware he was missing an arm and eye.

The pain was excruciating. How many cracks were in his bones? Too many to count, each one potent agony.

“Ustar,” a voice next to him stirred.

“Tox,” Tispas rasped. “Frebi. Where am I? What happened?”

“You are in the medical wing on Korbanok,” his Adjutant said. “As for what happened…”

“Caleb Hane,” Tispas twitched, trying to sit himself up. Fresh agony bit into his whole torso before he could lift his body an inch. “The Human…they…he fought…”

“He won,” Tox said. “He escaped.”

Terror gripped his heart. After everything he’d been prepared to sacrifice, the sheer risks he’d confronted…

All for nothing.

“What…is the damage,” he wheezed.

“…Negative three,” Tox mused.

“…We were already down five. We only have three traversable Beacons left in the system?”

“Ah, no…I meant negative three damage. Three Beacons have been restored,” Tox said. “…So far.”

“…Restored? I don’t…what?” Tispas said.

“You were wrong, Ustar,” Tox said. “We both were, it seems.”

“You already called me by name once, Adjutant,” Tispas groaned. “That’s quite enough.”

“Am I? Your Adjutant, I mean.”

“Yes,” Tispas said. “I was wrong to think you were compromised. I was wrong…”

“About a lot?” Tox snorted. “Yes. You were.”

“Don’t get lippy,” Tispas complained. “Explain these Beacons.”

“It was never Caleb,” Tox shrugged. “I’ve been staying in contact with Sten Halax. They’ve been working with [Miss] Clarke and her abductees, and they’ve corroborated Caleb Hane’s…announcement? Discovery?”

The Adjutant looked so…relieved to deliver the news. The sight clashed with the expectations the Marshal had awakened with.

“The Beacons were shutting themselves down,” Tox explained. “They’re… sapient, you see. They’re intelligent and alive.”

“What? How would—Why would anyone…And the Human…what? Asked them to reactivate?” Tispas sputtered.

“Apparently,” Tox nodded. “Sten Halax and one of the other humans, [Miss] Bryant, they said, made contact with another Beacon after Caleb left Shirao system. The Beacons have been under the impression that Vorak forces were behind the Humans’ abductions. They barred themselves in protest. The Beacon ostensibly told Sten Halax that Caleb requested they not punish any Vorak. Anyone at all, actually. He apparently urged them to be cautious and careful with any continuing interactions with…well, anyone.”

The Marshal’s remaining hand drifted to his empty shoulder socket, bald from surgery and wrapped in bandages.

“That does not seem like Caleb Hane,” Tispas said quietly.

“I think many things seemed one way, and were another,” Tox said.

“We’re positive?” Tispas asked. “These psionics aren’t responsible?”

“Almost the opposite,” Tox said. “The Beacons claimed to be the ultimate source of the creation. The one Sten Halax contacted said [Mister] Hane took one of their creations, improved it, and created psionics.”

“Their creations?” Tispas asked.

“As if everything else wasn’t enough, the Beacons are Adept. It’s how they’ve been getting starships from star to star this whole time. The traversal enigma? Turns out the Arrow team didn’t solve it. They just made a Beacon so large it attained sapience and created the abridgement on its own. The Organic Authority is savaging the Archo transport union right now, demanding to evaluate their standards for Beacon technical work. It’s a mess out there.”

“…Just how long has it been?” Tispas asked, befuddled.

“Caleb Hane left the system…a hundred-and-twenty hours ago.”

“Tides…” Tispas swore. “This much chaos, so quickly?”

“We made a mistake months ago,” Tox said. “We slipped a chain around our chest and broke into a run. The slack has been unfurling this whole time, and I think the line finally went taut on us.”

“What’s the Coalition been doing?” Tispas asked.

“Stomping on our fingers,” Tox said. “Just about everything that could have gone wrong, has. Our war footing is shattered, for months at least. Spirrid found an armistice with them, but it’s thin. Caleb Hane’s gone, and the Coalition only has eyes for us now.”

“The Coils?”

“My brother is not doing anything reckless. Their Beacon is one of the remaining to reactivate, but I understand they’re intent to continue the armistice. There’s even talks of them withdrawing from Sorc altogether,” Tox said.

“I can talk to Serignar,” Tispas said, “convince them…”

“No, you’re going to rest,” Tox said, pressing the Marshal back into the hospital bed with a single finger-claw. “Caleb Hane did a number on you. You got trounced by a diplomat, you know?”

“Coalition ambassador?” Tispas huffed.

“Yes.”

“Bah. We had that idea first.”

“…I’m thinking of doing it anyway,” Tox admitted.

“What?”

“I’ve been listening to the fleet, and most of them aren’t too thrilled with me,” Tox said. “I don’t believe I could organize your command most effectively anymore.”

“…But you were right,” Tispas frowned. “Who would spurn you for that?”

“Boots, especially, are saying you were being held back by my dissent. That, if I hadn’t, you might have discovered the truth sooner than anyone.”

“…That’s stupid. Since when did we take stupid applicants?”

“Marshal,” Tox cut him off. The look in the younger rak’s eyes wasn’t so relieved anymore. This was painful. “…I’m filing for a diplomatic post with the Humans. I can do some real good there.”

“…You sure?”

“…Yes.”

Tispas nodded slowly. It was heavy news. He was losing his Adjutant. Why couldn’t he have just done what any ambitious rak would have and wrested the fleet from him?

Except…

“That was my first mistake,” Tispas said. “Before the Humans ever appeared. I thought you were far more heartless than this.”

Tox laughed.

“I was talking to the Humans yesterday,” he said. “They have a phrase about hearts encased in ice—frozen. It means quite the same thing, but one of them pointed out that to have such a frozen heart, you must have a heart to first freeze.”

Tispas was certainly tired enough to laugh, but his injuries made the reflex too painful to follow. Instead, he gave some harsh wheezes with some convulsions.

A portable computer Tox had left on the chair beeped at him.

“…It’s Trakin,” Tox said. “Saying…the Humans want to talk to you when you’re awake.”

“The timing seems fortuitous,” Tis said.

“Not really,” Tox said. “[Miss] Clarke has devised a way to automate message sending. I’ve been getting unique messages pestering me every half hour for days now.”

“Go,” Tispas said. “I’ll be fine.”

“Alright, but you don’t get to do any fleet work yet. I’ll order the minders to thrash you if you try to get a computer,” Tox said.

“Just go,” Tispas sighed.

Tox eventually did slip out of the room, leaving Tispas alone with his absences.

But Caleb Hane had not only taken from the Marshal.

He’d left something as well.

Where a scrap of thought with writing had once rested in his mind, in its place now there was a…machine…construct…thing.

It too was etched with words.

But this language Tispas recognized.

In Starspeak lettering, Caleb’s psionic creation taunted the Marshal with the words;

Introductory Psionics

‎ To start, open

·····

Back on Archo every single person of four different species of alien was talking about recent events. Several thousand people had suddenly found psionic intro-modules in their head ready to teach them all about Caleb’s brain child.

When the wave had washed over them, Nora had even found a second copy dropped into her mind.

It wasn’t just Adepts either. Returning to Asrin-Dane colony, they’d found that even a few Casti had caught the psionics that Caleb had somehow scattered. That alone would have turned the rumor mill for months, but with the war developments, news about humans, and apparently the Beacons being alive…

Colony leadership had apparently come close to announcing a state of emergency. Maybe they still would.

But for now, Nora was back amongst her campers. She’d found a quiet moment to steal away to the rooftop and confide in Caroline. She was the only one Nora had told about weighing this decision.

“[Why quit now?]” Caroline asked.

“[Because I’m not sure I trust myself to be in charge,]” Nora said.

“[No, I meant why quit now?]” Caroline said. “[Caleb survived. We got our update sent out. Everything turned out alright.]”

“[We got lucky,]” Nora said bitterly. “[I stabbed Caleb in the back and got lucky that it paid off.]”

“[He didn’t sound upset about it in his message,]” Caroline pointed out.

“[He was being polite,]” Nora said. “[I nearly got him killed. That’s not something you forget.]”

“[You did the best you could—your words, not mine. So, don’t think I’m just trying to overlook anything bad. I just don’t think quitting is the right answer,]” Caroline said.

“[I was…not okay with killing Caleb,]” Nora said. “[But I put him at risk, and he’s one of us. How am I supposed to lead us when I’m ready to sacrifice my own people to save…]”

“[…Your own people?]” Caroline pointed out. “[I’m not saying you had a good response, but I don’t think any good responses to your situation existed. Anyone else in that situation does worse than you.]”

“[That’s just bringing us back to where we started then. I’m in charge by default, and not because I’m good at it. Someday, we’re going to be in a situation like that again, and I don’t think I would handle it.]”

“[But…you are good at it,]” Caroline said. “[You’re circumspect, deliberate, intelligent, and open to feedback. You have a point about being in a situation like that again, but I think that’s our fault, not yours.]”

“[…Come again?]” Nora said.

“[I mean face it, it took us almost two months to get proactive with the Vorak after you were gone. The problem hasn’t been that you’re in charge, the problem is that we’ve been letting you do everything on your own. We even let you go with Halax alone.]”

“[I wouldn’t have let any of you come with,]” Nora shook her head.

“[But we didn’t give you the chance to turn us down,]” Caroline said. “[You wouldn’t believe how much sleep Dustin’s lost over that.]”

“[I knew what I was doing,]” Nora said. “[That’s why I think it’s a problem. I did something bad, I knew it was bad, and—]”

“[God, shut up!]” Caroline complained. “[You did know what you were doing! I agree. But if you’re the only one of us who needs to know what they’re doing, I think it’s the rest of us that fucked up putting you in that situation to begin with. Face it; if you quit, we’d vote for someone new, and whoop-di-dee-do! It’s still you. We’d just vote you to be in charge again. If you don’t believe me, go have this conversation with literally anyone else.]”

“[I feel helpless, every decision feels like it’s going to drown me, and that’s…allowed,]” Nora said. “[I am…allowed to feel overwhelmed and still be in charge…aren’t I…]”

“[Ah, you see? With everything that’s happened, with the time deadlines we’ve had with lives at stake, you’re realizing how little support you’ve had.]”

“[…Support is good,]” Nora conceded.

“[And that’s our responsibility,]” Caroline preened.

“[Thanks,]” Nora said.

“[Glad that’s settled,]” Caroline nodded. “[So Caleb Hane is pretty crazy isn’t he?]”

“[Yes,]” Nora agreed. “[Halax and Michelle should be back tomorrow. They confirmed what he said. The Beacons are not-walking, talking, intelligent beings. Apparently some thought they were human at first.]”

“[Because of us?]” Caroline asked.

“[Michelle thinks they pulled memories from the abductees who died,]” Nora answered. “[Took the Beacons a while to realize those memories weren’t theirs.]”

Caroline nodded towards Casti walking the streets of the colony. “[What do you think the aliens will do about all this?]”

“[Everything? Nothing? There’s a lot of aliens out there. I don’t think anyone could predict how all this unfolds,]” Nora said.

“[When do you think we’ll go rescuing abductees in other systems?]”

“[I think…that’s something we should decide with group support,]” Nora said.

“[Attagirl,]” Caroline smiled.

·····

Jordan found herself on the run. Again.

A few months ago, she wouldn’t have been surprised by this turn of events at all.

Coming to planet Cammo Caddo had seen her nervous at every big-eyed Casti around every corner. Reading about them in psionic documents had not done them justice.

Seeing them firsthand had seen Jordan leaping in surprise every time any of them spoke anywhere behind her. They just moved so quietly…it was deceptively deft in contrast to how chubby most Casti appeared.

Still, she hadn’t made the best impression when she first landed on the planet. She’d pulled herself away from the wreckage and limped to the nearest town. So the Casti citizens there had been understandably skittish when a dirty, bleeding alien had stumbled into their midst.

But they’d actually taken her in. Seemingly hesitantly, but the psionic notebook advised against trying to read alien facial expressions too quickly. Different facial muscles meant different things, Jordan did her best to accept the help in the spirit in which it was given: confusedly and quietly.

The biggest threat to her life on the planet those first few weeks had been her own nerves. Every time one of the Casti snuck up on her, she gave a start and nearly reopened her wounds.

Any long term plans were put on hold while she recovered and interacted with the aliens. They didn’t talk much. Some of them not at all.

She suspected it was something unique to this group of Casti. The psionic notebook didn’t say anything about Casti being naturally mute. Jordan found herself mimicking them a little bit. She didn’t talk much to begin with, and on the days where she became fed up with the language her psionics had come with, she’d just give up on talking altogether.

Over time, she began to suspect these aliens must have some kind of religious affiliation. They kept a strict schedule, they dressed in a consistently simple style, and they met every four days in the town center to sing.

Jordan had kept her distance at first, but ultimately found them harmless and helpful. By the end of her third month there, she had…a not-home.

It wasn’t a house. It wasn’t even a tent.

But with her so-called ‘Adeptry’, she’d set herself up a living space once she could walk without assistance, and none of the Casti had tried pantomiming a request for her to take it down. She’d still wound up moving it a few times.

She couldn’t quite explain why to herself, but she’d simply felt the urge to change venues. Maybe she didn’t want to feel like she was setting down roots. Now how many months she stayed, she knew this town wasn’t a permanent home for her. And none of her Casti hosts had objected whenever she’d set up her makeshift pavilion in a new location.

The months had rolled by and she’d found her body healthier and healthier, with her acquisition of the Casti’s decidedly- not -Starspeak language progressing decently.

She’d learned some important facts, namely that this stupid backwater church commune of aliens didn’t have any radios or mechanized vehicles, and they lived more than a hundred miles from the nearest settlement that did.

These aliens had been so very accommodating for her, but good grief, they were comparatively aggravating.

Jordan’s feelings were made no simpler when her pursuers tracked her down instead.

And so more than a year after having new information beamed into her head, Jordan was on the run again. She left the hour she saw the ship fly past the town. When they’d realized what she was doing, they’d even given her water and food.

Not over. Just past. It’s trajectory wouldn’t have taken it within fifty miles of the commune, but Jordan wasn’t taking any chances.

But even with hours of a head start, and hiking under the tree cover, they found her.

Smaller aircraft had broken off from the plane—or maybe it was a spaceship, Jordan didn’t know. They swooped above the canopy of trees, always centered on her.

They ran her for two days and nights before she collapsed from having run out of water. As the Casti pirates closed in with poles and nets, Jordan realized she’d run too long.

She should have turned and fought. Made a stand. Now she was too spent to fight back. They dragged her off with no ceremony. She stayed conscious just long enough to recognize how the Casti had been following her under the tree cover.

Their minds teemed with the same psionics living in hers.

How many people got abducted by aliens twice?