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  "We're not fond of ultimatums, Mr. Dantes," Kai said softly. He was impressed despite himself when Dantes held fast, stubbornly refusing to back down.

  "We're talking about my baby girl," Dantes said. "I have no intention of making a nuisance of myself. And I'll increase my offer if that's what it takes. But I will accompany your investigation."

  Kai exchanged a quick glance with Ilsa, but Dantes's tone had already decided him. He was relieved to find silent assent in Ilsa's implacable expression.

  "Fine," Kai relented. "But we make the travel arrangements. And if you aren't ready to leave by morning, we'll depart without you. Understood?"

  "Understood." Dantes visibly relaxed with the concession. "Now. Where is this contract you need me to sign?"

  "I'll draw it up for you tonight," Ilsa said, rising from the edge of the desk. Kai rose as well, leaving Dantes no choice but to follow suit. Simple as it would have been to revise their standard contract and sign it before Dantes departed the office, neither Kai nor Ilsa offered. There were certain steps they needed to take before obligating themselves in writing.

  "Well." Dantes straightened. "I'll expect your missive. Where shall I meet you in the morning?"

  "We'll send you the details along with the contract," Kai said, and escorted Dantes to the door.

  *~*~*

  Ilsa kept an apartment not far from the office she shared with Kai, and six blocks' distance made for a dramatic change of scenery. The neighborhood where she lodged wouldn't be anyone's idea of a holiday destination, but it was cleaner and better lit than the industrial district that abutted it to the east. The buildings stood just as tightly packed, but as Ilsa approached her destination, the architecture changed, a tangible shift away from lumpy stonework and rusted industrial frames. Cardim Lane boasted sleeker edges and sharper skylines. Windows glinted not just with reflected sunlight but with active security panes, and the few shops and kiosks conducted their business with dated but functional tech.

  There was still a crust of age and disrepair dulling every surface, settling across the streets with subtle determination. But this far from the landing hubs, there was significantly less grime. The air didn't carry such an overwhelming smell of engine grease and toxic discharge. Ilsa could almost convince herself she was staying in the crappy part of some nicer town, rather than the reverse. Port cities weren't always unpleasant, but Naius V had proven one of the most uninviting planets Ilsa and Kai had landed on yet.

  She let herself into a looming building that looked exactly like the structures to either side, then navigated a clean hall with severely high ceilings. Her apartment was on the sixteenth floor, reached by a quick ride up a shuddering lift. The rental was more like a cramped bedroom than a proper home, but it was clean and secure. The fact that the back wall—the one facing north towards the central port terminal and landing hubs—was ninety-percent window made up for a great deal of inconvenience.

  Ilsa had always harbored a fondness for spacecraft. The reality of space travel might have proved more tedious than the romantic imaginings of her childhood, but that fact didn't stop her from appreciating the sleek lines of a well-designed ship. It sure as hell didn't prevent her enjoying the way heat shuddered visibly around descent thrusters as atmosphere-competent vessels made their landings and liftoffs. One planet or a hundred, the view never lost its appeal.

  Overhead lights activated as she stepped across the threshold and into her apartment. She would have a little over an hour before Kai appeared on her doorstep, but that should be more than enough time. Her desk was a mess of data screens and tools, and Ilsa sat to begin her work. She ignored the question of Dantes's contract for the moment, focusing her efforts elsewhere. Research first. There were things she needed to know about Eleazar Dantes before she and Kai signed themselves over to his employ.

  An hour later she had what she needed, and Ilsa turned her attention to packing. Her sturdy rucksack held nearly everything she owned, and the rest she would leave behind without regret. Ilsa lived light, traveled light, and kept few possessions beyond her clothes and equipment. It was part instinct, part conscious choice; there was no point accumulating volumes of trivial effects when a new transport ship hovered just beyond every horizon.

  Ilsa knew from experience that even if Eleazar Dantes hadn't called them away from Naius V, she would have been too restless to stay put much longer. Funds had grown tight, but they weren't a problem just yet. This was nowhere near the longest she and Kai had gone between jobs in their seven years as partners. But Ilsa could feel the streets and walls constricting around her as the surrounding city became too familiar. This place was becoming routine, and Ilsa couldn't bear the mounting itch that sense of familiarity put beneath her skin.

  No matter how predictable her need to board a ship for elsewhere, Kai always followed without complaint. His willingness to uproot at a whim was a vital tenet of their partnership. It was also an unspoken understanding, and one Ilsa depended on more than she would ever admit. Few friendships were stubborn enough to survive through a lifetime of wanderlust, and Ilsa could hardly blame the friends who had faded and flagged along the way. Keeping up with her was a lot to ask.

  Kai did it without the need of asking. Loyalty like that was a gift Ilsa never quite knew what to do with.

  When her door slid open without warning, Ilsa didn't startle at the sound. Caution made her turn quickly, but a glance only confirmed what she already knew: Kai had arrived right on schedule. Ilsa was well accustomed to Kai entering her space unannounced. She'd given him her pass codes on day one planet-side, as she did in every new location, and she offered a humoring smile as Kai strode across the threshold into her apartment.

  Kai shrugged out of his jacket, looking out of place in the tiny room. He stood almost a foot taller than Ilsa, and his broad shoulders took up a comedic amount of space amid the narrow walls and sparse furniture. With his sturdy frame and bulky muscle, he looked very much like he might shatter the impractical little chairs beside what passed for a kitchen table. Ilsa pursed her lips to hide her amusement as Kai strode past the ridiculous chairs, dropping his jacket over one of them on his way past. He planted his feet before the enormous window instead. The sun was setting at the edge of a polluted sky, and the result was a horizon painted violently in orange and red and pink. Clouds scattered through the mess like an afterthought. The city below looked garish in the skewed sunlight.

  For all its gaudiness, Ilsa found it a beautiful view. It was one of the few things she would miss about Naius V.

  "I see you're already packed," Kai said without taking his eyes off the horizon. He stood completely at ease, his posture loose, his hands stuffed carelessly in his pockets. His rust-and-copper hair was cropped particularly short at the moment. Backlit by the setting sun, it looked eerily like a sheen of fire across his scalp.

  Ilsa moved to join him, and they stood shoulder to shoulder. She crossed her arms over her chest and considered the disjointed city stretching into the distance below. Despite the view, she wouldn't be at all sorry to go.

  "Have you begun a data trace on Abigail?" Kai asked, glancing down at her with green-hazel eyes.

  "Yes," Ilsa said. "At least, as much as I can from a backwater like this. Nothing I found changes tomorrow's itinerary."

  Dantes had given them everything he knew about his daughter's last known physical location. Wherever she had gone after that, Kai and Ilsa's search could begin in only one place.

  Ilsa was familiar with Corriah Mor. An independent space station, it stood brazenly at the intersection of seven different Alliance trade sectors. It was the nearest port of its size, and the largest that was still intact from before the war. It was also the only place within a dozen parsecs that had direct access to all the data streams Ilsa would need to patch into. That it happened to be the only physical clue Dantes could provide towards his daughter's whereabouts was too logical to be coincidence. A journey to disappear had to begin somewhere, and what better plac
e for Abigail to lose herself than Corriah Mor?

  "What about Eleazar Dantes?" Kai asked. His posture hadn't changed, but he had shifted so that his attention was unmistakably on Ilsa rather than the city below. He needed a shave, but she had no intention of telling him so. He seemed to favor the careless stubble, especially when they traveled, and he would certainly blend in better with the crowds in transit if he looked a little rough around the edges.

  "Everything I found fits with the information he volunteered." Ilsa paused and added a wry, "More or less. You won't be surprised to learn he took some editorial liberties."

  "What kind of liberties?"

  "He was right that his wife's death was no accident. The local authorities agreed—they tried to charge Dantes himself with her murder." She ignored Kai gaping at her and continued, "The charges were ultimately dismissed, so I had to break into some sealed court documents to get the full story. From what I can tell, they simply lacked the evidence to convict. Which... of course they did. Can't produce evidence that isn't there. Dantes's defense did implicate Helena Kanne, but it doesn't look like anyone pursued the investigation after his acquittal."

  Kai whistled, long and low. "Sounds ugly as hell."

  "No kidding." Ilsa shook her head. "It's no wonder he didn't want to give us details. And get this: I tried to track down Helena Kanne? I can't find recent traces of her anywhere. She fell off the map after Dantes's trial. There were some hiccups in the system at first—if I had to guess, I'd say she was traveling and trying to keep a low profile—but nothing since."

  "That's a little suspicious."

  "A little," Ilsa snorted. "We'll have to move carefully. If she's still watching, we could end up leading her straight to Abigail Dantes.

  "We'll stay vigilant," Kai agreed. Then, glancing at Ilsa with an expression of fond familiarity, he said, "There's something else bothering you about all this."

  Ilsa breathed a quiet sigh, but she waved a dismissive hand as the tension eased from her shoulders. "I just don't like that he's coming along. We're not babysitters. How the fuck does Dantes expect us to do our job and keep him out of trouble?"

  "He doesn't," Kai reminded her. "His safety's on his own head. We'll add a waiver clause to the contract if we have to, but our job begins and ends with the investigation." Then, after a pause, Kai asked, "What do you make of him?"

  Ilsa huffed and scrutinized the horizon to keep from rolling her eyes. "I don't know." People weren't exactly her bag of tricks. She preferred computers to flesh-and-blood puzzles. There were reasons she and Kai tended to divide responsibilities the way they did. "What do you think of him?"

  Kai shrugged. "I think he genuinely wants to find his daughter. And I think he'll keep his head down, at least. Hopefully he'll stay out of the way, let us do our job without interference." Kai's next words were quiet. "He's desperate. He wouldn't be here otherwise."

  "Do we trust him?" Ilsa asked. She was confident of the answer, but she wanted to hear Kai say it just the same.

  "We're too smart to trust him." Kai spoke with only a trace of worry, the words softened by a teasing smile. "But we can at least rely on him to pay."

  "Come on, then." Ilsa nudged Kai with one elbow and turned from the window. "You can book tomorrow's transport while I draft this contract. The sooner we get moving, the better I'll feel."

  Chapter Two

  They bought passage on a massive passenger liner scheduled for direct transit to Corriah Mor. Three days was the shortest possible duration for the journey, but at least the trip looked set to pass more comfortably than Kai had originally expected. He'd been braced to share cramped fourth-class bunks the entire distance; those were the accommodations he and Ilsa had booked the night before, the best they could secure on short notice. But with Dantes along for the ride, they had been upgraded to larger cabins before they'd even set foot aboard the ship. Three separate berths. Not first class as Kai suspected Dantes had wanted, or even commerce class since those were already overbooked, but still an improvement for which Kai was grateful.

  "You could have upgraded only yourself," he pointed out to Dantes as they followed an attendant through the enormous ship. The attendant was more or less human-sized, stout and bipedal. From the scaly pattern that marked his visible skin, Kai guessed he was from somewhere near the Setrius Cluster. When Dantes didn't respond to his pointed comment, Kai continued, "Ilsa and I would have found you at the receiving dock, no trouble." They were well accustomed to tight travel arrangements, and three days was hardly long enough for them to lose track of their client entirely, even on a vessel as large as this.

  Dantes scowled at him as though Kai had just said something crude. "Don't be absurd. I've contracted you to do me a valuable service. I won't have my employees traveling in squalor."

  Dantes's words were hardly a fair appraisal. The fourth-class cabins may have been cramped and confining, barely larger than the narrow bunks that populated them, but they were as clean as the rest of the ship. Corriah Mor was a megacenter of travel and commerce. Even departing from a backwater colony like Naius V, there were plenty of legitimately licensed vessels to choose from.

  Kai didn't bother arguing that particular detail, but from his other side, Ilsa pointed out, "We're more like private contractors than we are employees." Kai threw her a wry look that made Ilsa's eyebrows rise, but she fell silent. Kai quieted too, leery of talking Dantes out of paying for a full set of fancier accommodations.

  The corridor was growing busier with every step, though the crowd was still nowhere near the crush of bodies that would be settling into the cheaper zones below. The figures hurrying past were mostly human—Naius V was a Terran colony first and foremost—but there were a handful of other species amid the crowd. As he followed the stern attendant, threading a steady path through the bustle, Kai caught fleeting glimpses of fur and scales and leathery limbs, even feathers for one brief moment.

  The three rooms were located nowhere near each other, and Dantes clearly found the fact distasteful. Perhaps he didn't trust Kai and Ilsa any further than they trusted him. Perhaps he wanted to keep even closer tabs than Kai had realized. Surely Eleazar Dantes was a man accustomed to closely protecting his investments.

  But even a rich and powerful businessman didn't have the clout to oust other travelers from rooms that had already been paid for. Maybe nearer his own solar system he could have swung his weight around to greater effect, but it seemed Naius V was too far out of range to respect Dantes's financial influence.

  When they reached the first of their three stops—Dantes's room—Dantes stopped Kai with a firm hand on the shoulder. "Mr. Othen," Dantes spoke quietly enough that Kai had to strain to hear the words over the noisy hall, "I trust you will inform me if you discover anything useful while en route to Corriah Mor." It wasn't a question, and though Dantes's tone fell somewhere short of command, Kai still understood the sober weight of the request.

  "Of course." Kai doubted Ilsa would learn more mid-trip than she'd been able to glean from her home terminal the night before, but it was always possible. There was no reason to refuse a request far more reasonable than Dantes's insistence on accompanying them in the first place.

  Dantes nodded, released him, and retreated through the door into his cabin. Through the portal, Kai caught a glimpse of a single room offering a generous amount of space. Of course there were no windows. There was a proper bed, though, which Kai noticed just before their stout guide urged them impatiently forward. Kai settled once more into step beside Ilsa, and they followed obediently past several corners, through corridors that seemed to vary constantly—broader, taller, narrower than the halls before—but never constricted far enough to prevent Kai and Ilsa moving easily side-by-side.

  They traveled what felt like an enormous distance before finally halting at a door that looked exactly the same as Dantes's quarters far behind them.

  "Here is sir's room," the somber attendant announced, but he was looking at Ilsa, and it was to he
r he handed the small rod that would unlock the security seal. She accepted the device, palming it as she gave a polite smile and a dip that wouldn't have passed for a curtsy in any sector Kai had visited.

  Then she turned to Kai, and there was eloquent caution on her face. Her appearance was uncharacteristically somber in the long coat she favored for traveling. The dark, heavy fabric reached nearly to her knees, revealing sturdy trousers and tall boots that made her look as ready to hike rough terrain as ride in style through the stars.

  "Find me when you're settled?" She waved the security rod in front of the sensor panel, and the door slid smoothly open. "Or would you rather I come to you?"

  "I suspect Dantes will hunt us both down before you get the chance," Kai observed dryly, "but I'll find you."

  "Come, come," the attendant interrupted, urging Kai to follow him. Kai cast one last look over his shoulder and saw Ilsa disappear into her room, her oversized rucksack bumping against the doorframe.

  "Quickly please, sir," his guide admonished. "This way."

  Kai shrugged his own bag higher onto his shoulder and followed without a word.

  *~*~*

  Ilsa knew what the exterior of Corriah Mor looked like only from photo images. While she'd been to the station before, she had never traveled in the kind of luxury that might allow a glimpse. Even this trip, with Dantes's insistence on upgrading their shipboard quarters, she didn't have access to those few observation decks open to civilians with the priciest boarding passes.

  She had never been fond of the claustrophobic confines of space travel. They may have been the necessary trade-off to her nigh-constant wanderlust, but the trade was a steep one indeed.

  Ilsa had learned early in their acquaintance that Kai didn't share her distaste. He seemed as easy in the cramped, windowless hold of a cargo dispatch as he did on the sturdier surface of moons and planets. More than once he had suggested they stage their between-commission headquarters aboard a high-traffic space station. They could be at the center of everything, perfectly placed to catch the edges of transient commerce, not to mention potential clients with lost treasure on their minds.