And finally, there was the . . . other issue.
Hierarchy space was just next door. Not even a light-year away. The border was so close Bay could practically spit across it
He winced. The Hierarchy. The wrong side of the tracks. The bad half of the galaxy. Call it what you will, Bay didn't like being so close. Not that the Concord was particularly nice when you were human. But the Hierarchy had far worse than marshcrabs and weegles. The meanest, toughest predators of the galaxy made the Hierarchy their home. Thousands of predatory species controlled those star systems, all bowing before the Skra-Shen scorpions.
Nope, not many reasons for most folk to visit Terminus Wormhole. Even the Peacekeepers never came here. Even the damn Concord army didn't patrol here. Deep down, they probably wouldn't mind much if the scorpions destroyed the entire system.
All this made Terminus a hellhole for decent, law-abiding folk—and heaven for thieves, druggers, pimps, pickpockets, gamblers, and the other lowlifes of the Concord.
Including Bay.
And Paradise Lost space station had grown to serve them.
"They say that before the galaxy divided between Concord and Hierarchy, Paradise Lost was respectable," Brooklyn said. "It was originally a luxury hotel."
Bay frowned. "I thought you were sleeping."
"Who can sleep at a time like this?" Brooklyn said. "In this part of space? Thoughts keep rattling through my chips. Probably ants too."
He groaned. "Brook, you don't have ants!" He looked at the space station ahead. "Respectable, you say? Well, those days are long gone."
"Indeed," said Brooklyn. "Paradise Lost is now the galaxy's most wretched hive of scum and—"
"Shush," Bay said.
He gazed at the station. When he squinted, he could just make out the original structure—an elegant cylinder. Over time, hundreds of pods had latched onto the space station like barnacles. Neon signs danced and shone, advertising the wares within.
Slugs, Slugs, Slugs! one sign announced, and a neon mollusk swayed seductively.
Another sign featured a marshcrab sniffing a platter of tentacles. Greasy Grabbers! Get 'em here!
A neon heart glittered. The Love Chapel! Fast Weddings, Cheap Divorces!
As Bay approached, more and more signs shone, promising to buy his gold for cash, to sell him loans, to massage his aching muscles, to polish his scales, to fluff his feathers, and to rid his starship of bed bugs, engine slugs, and humans. He flew by a dozen casinos, twice as many brothels, a hundred or more pubs. There were drug dens and fighting pits, adult virtual reality rooms, even a minigolf course for the kids.
He thought of sprawling grasslands.
He saw in his memory a planet called Vaelia, and the sun dipping behind bales of hay.
He heard her laughter again, saw her smile, her sparkling eyes, and he stroked her long black hair.
"Seohyun," he whispered into her ears, and she laughed and kissed him.
Her skeletal hand reached toward him from the ash. Her long black hair fluttered in the wind, burnt, barely clinging to her skull.
Bay lowered his head.
That old life was gone. Those two years on the plains, the only two years when he had known joy, would never return. Seohyun was dead, and so was his soul.
He approached one of Paradise Lost's airlocks. They glided into a massive hangar.
Many starships were already docking here. Most were small shuttles like Brooklyn; their motherships floated farther out. Brooklyn extended her landing gear. They landed on the greasy hangar floor, sliding and squeaking and nearly hitting other shuttles.
Bay looked around. The space station was packed today. Bay saw bristly marshcrab ships—spiky, ugly things that looked like crabs themselves. There were white spiral ships, mottled with brown patches—the shuttles of the Slurin civilization, sentient snails. Other ships were shaped like coiling, scaled snakes, complete with portholes like eyes. Some ships were cobbled together from scraps, cannons thrusting out from them—probably the ships of roaming merchants or bounty hunters.
"Every ship is uglier than the last," Brooklyn said.
He patted her dashboard. "You'll fit right in."
"Muck you, hooch," she said. "Can't you take me to an Aelonian port for once?"
Bay snorted. "Aelonians are respectable aliens. They don't want us around." He looked at a few wrinkly aliens standing nearby. They were giving him the stink eye. "Even here, the greasiest place in the galaxy, we're not exactly welcome."
He taxied Brooklyn toward a parking spot. They squeezed between a rusty pontoon and a bio-tech starship that grumbled, opened one eye, mumbled something about wingless pests, then went back to snoring.
"You're leaving me here?" Brooklyn said. "By a living starship? Is this a dock or a Disney animator's worst nightmare?"
Bay regretted ever telling Brooklyn about Earth lore. He could do without ancient references.
Funny, he thought. Even most humans wouldn't know who Disney was.
But Bay knew, of course. He was the son of Admiral Emet Ben-Ari himself, founder of the Heirs of Earth. As a child, Bay had seen the Earthstone, the repository of old Earth's culture.
Then, fourteen years ago, they had lost the Earthstone.
They had lost Earth's heritage.
David Emery had been like an uncle to Bay. Hell, more like a father. Bay's own father had always been distant, busy with his battles, but David? David had taken Bay fishing (at least when they were near a world with water), had taught him to throw a ball, to read poetry, to draw.
Then David had betrayed them.
He had stolen the Earthstone.
He had run.
Bay had been only eight years old. To him, the Earthstone had been just a library of old cartoons and books. But Emet had been devastated. Betrayed. Emet had lost his best friend—and the cultural heritage of his people.
Bay shook his head, returning his thoughts to the present.
"Just try to get some sleep, Brook," he said. "I'm gonna spend a few days here. I'll find a mechanic to fix your wing."
"Not a robot mechanic," Brooklyn said. "They all creak."
Bay raised his hands in resignation. "Fine, no robot mechanics! I'll find giant alien ants to repair you." He muttered those last words under his breath.
Bay stepped outside into the hangar. At once the aroma hit him—a familiar mix of old cigarettes, urine, grog puke, and decay. Ah, the good old smells of the galactic fringe, as comforting as Mom's apple pie.
Leaving Brooklyn behind, Bay shuffled across the hangar. He pulled his hood low, and he stuffed his hands into his pockets. He hunched over as he walked, trying to make himself smaller. He never felt comfortable in crowds. He wasn't particularly tall for a human. He was only five-foot-eight, about the same height as his sister, and much shorter than their dad. A decade of running had also left Bay rawboned, almost too thin for health. And yet he always tried to make himself even smaller, wrapping himself in baggy clothes, hooding his head. He shuffled and peered around nervously instead of walking tall. There were too many dangers in the galaxy, especially for a human. Bay had learned to lurk in shadows.
I wish you could walk with me, Brook, he thought.
Someday if he were rich enough, perhaps he'd buy Brooklyn an android body. It would be easy enough to transfer her AI from the starship into an android. He's buy her a classy body. Not a trashy gynoid like the robo-brothels employed. Something elegant. Something better than he was. Something with two working hands and squared shoulders and a straight back. Something like how Seohyun had looked.
Bay looked around him at the hangar. It was a grimy, sad place, a blend of shadows, rude graffiti, and garish neon lights. Slot machines stood against a wall, and a variety of wrinkly, feathered, and scaly aliens were shoving scryls into the beeping, shining boxes. One alien, a creature with a metallic body and wet tentacles, gurgled with joy as he won several furry, purring aliens as a prize. He gulped them down, ignoring their purrs of protest, and continued playing.