Starsight

Cobb eyed him.

“You know,” Jorgen said, “about how my family fought to keep the defect from being talked about? Kept it from being known to the general public? The one that Spensa’s father had, the . . . the . . .”

“Cytonics?” Cobb asked.

“There’s a reason, sir,” Jorgen said.

“I know. Some of your ancestors had it. Wasn’t confined just to the engine crews. You saying you’ve been hearing things, son? Seeing things?”

Jorgen pressed his lips closed tight and nodded. “White lights, sir. In the corners of my vision. Like . . . Like eyes.”

There. He’d said it. Why was he sweating so much? Speaking the words hadn’t been that hard, had it?

“Well, that’s something at least,” Cobb said, and held his cup to the side. An aide helpfully grabbed it and ran to get him a refill. “Come with me. There’s someone I want you to meet.”

“From the fleet Psychological Corps?” Jorgen asked.

“No. She’s an old woman with an excellent taste in pies.”

19

I bolted awake to M-Bot panicking.

“Spensa!” he cried. “Spensa!”

My heart suddenly pounding, I scrambled to get into position in the cockpit. I grabbed the control sphere, blinking bleary eyes, my thumb on the trigger.

“What!” I said. “Who do I shoot?”

“Someone is in the embassy,” M-Bot said. “I set up proximity alerts. They’re sneaking up on where they think you’re sleeping.”

Scud. Assassins? Sweating, my mind still cloudy from sleep, I powered up my ship and paused. Then . . . what? Fly away? To where? I was completely in the clutches of the Superiority—if they wanted me dead, they wouldn’t resort to assassins, would they?

I needed to know more. Determined, I fumbled in the cockpit’s small weapons locker and got out my handheld destructor pistol. So far as I’d been able to tell, personal weapons were forbidden on Starsight—but I also appeared to have some diplomatic exemptions, so I wasn’t certain where I stood.

I made sure my hologram was still active, then quietly cracked the canopy and slipped out, keeping a low profile in case of snipers. I dashed to the steps down into the embassy. Here, I crept down toward the top floor.

“There are two of them,” M-Bot said softly through my earpiece. “One has reached the kitchen on the top floor. The other is on the bottom floor near the door, perhaps guarding the exit.”

Right. I’d never been in any actual ground conflicts, and my training was minimal. However, as I left the stairwell and stepped onto the top floor, I felt the same calm, cold determination that I experienced before a starfighter battle. I could face an assassin, so long as I had a gun in my hand. This was a problem I could shoot. I much preferred it to the nebulous worries I’d fallen asleep to last night.

“The enemy is positioned approximately two meters inside the door,” M-Bot whispered to me. “Near the counter. Their back is to the door right now. I think they might be surprised you weren’t in the bedroom.”

I nodded, then leaped into the room, leveling my destructor. A brown-carapaced Krell turned around at the motion, dropping something to the ground that shattered. A plate?

“Ahh!” the Krell said, the voice being interpreted by my translator as female. “Don’t kill me!”

“What are you doing here?” I demanded.

“Cleaning your dishes!” the Krell woman said. She waved her armored limbs in a sort of anxious way. “We were sent to do your housecleaning!”

Housecleaning? I frowned, my gun still leveled. But the Krell woman wore a belt full of cleaning tools on the outside of her sandstone carapace, and through the helmet faceplate I could see the panicked motions from the shrimpy crab creature. She didn’t have any weapons I could see.

A sound suddenly came from down below, on the first floor. A . . . vacuum cleaner?

“Hmm,” M-Bot said. “Perhaps we misjudged this situation.”

“Such aggression!” the Krell cleaner said. “I was not warned of this!”

“Who sent you?” I demanded, stepping forward.

She cringed back. “We are employed by the Department of Species Integration!”

Cuna. I narrowed my eyes, but put away my gun. “Sorry about the mistake,” I said, then left her and went to check on the other one—a second Krell, who was humming as they vacuumed the ground floor.

As I watched them, the chimes at the door rang. I frowned again, then checked the door. A package had been set by it—presumably my new flight suit.

Cuna themself stood outside. Tall, blue-skinned, shrouded in an enveloping set of dark blue robes.

I opened the door.

Cuna gave me one of their creepy smiles, showing too many teeth. “Ah, Emissary Alanik! May I enter?”

“Did you send your lackeys to sneak up on me?” I said.

Cuna stopped short. “Lackeys? I’m not familiar with the translation of that word. Minions? I sent Mrs. Chamwit to be your housekeeper, and she brought an assistant. I realized that you didn’t bring your own staff, and might need some lent to you.”