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  Kerris swallowed, hard. Her thoughts fell back into the familiar trap, pain ripping through her. Her heart twisted inside her, but she did not let the tears fall. They changed nothing.

  She shook her head like thoughts could fly out and wished the memories would fade. As she loaded the mission details onto the Ereader she strode across to hand it to Arucken.

  He lounged in his couch, a languid pose drawing attention to the differences in his graceful form. His dark face grew sober as he considered it, swiping past each page with long, thick fingers. She stood by his side, arms crossed as she waited.

  “Thoughts?” she asked. He might not hold the ocean in the same regard, but he held no fear of it. His home planet held even more oceans than Earth.

  “Any sea creatures?” Arucken asked as he handed back the Ereader.

  “None to concern us!” She said. “Reports show basic, native life. The colonists won’t have permission to add to the ecosystem yet.”

  “Arguing?” Arucken said, and he grinned at her. He often complained about how humans sought to alter the surrounding landscape, although his species relied even more so on natural adaptations. He insisted it was different, but she’d lost the science somewhere along the way. Biology was his interest, not hers.

  Behind his humour lay reluctance, and she realised they’d been heavy on the earth colonies recently. They needed more diverse locations. After this one.

  A thread of amusement fell back against her mind, and she guessed he’d been thinking along the same lines. A visit to her parents was always hard on them both.

  If it’s genetic, we’ll be having good arguments as you age!

  Kerris winced as she recalled the xenophobic gems her parents voiced earlier. His perfect recall was not always a boon.

  Encounters with Arucken’s much larger family had their own challenges, but she kept them to herself. Arucken was secretive about his extended, biological links.

  She transmitted acceptance, waiting for the confirmation before tapping in the navigation route. Let the computer do the work, it cost enough.

  Life settled into routine. It took a simple word or gesture for them to ask for, and be given, their own space. Octavia held many chambers, and her storage wasn’t small, but the close quarters would grate on anyone after a time. Kerris worked on freelance articles whilst Arucken concentrated on the psychological tests they both had to undergo.

  He worked on processing the reports the Concordat and his species demanded, his fingers often darting across the keyboard faster than she could follow. Sometimes he’d pause, a finger hovering over a chart as he considered. He did not ask for her help there, not anymore.

  When they had first paired he asked her about every report, until she’d stopped him.

  “Just tell me what hoops to jump through.” She had insisted, to his shock. “And don’t tell me what you are reporting back!”

  And once she’d explained the human-centric phrase, he agreed. They were both aware they could not ignore what Arucken’s people phrased as requests.

  She had spoken of the contract only once to her sister, who had been unable to contain her horror. “How can you spy like that?”

  For someone with such a diverse crew, it had been an odd reaction. Aludra spoke of them with pride, her dark eyes alive with amusement. She had been setting up an apprenticeship exchange with a group of Kaimahi, a small and secretive race with a home planet on the fringes of known space.

  “Fast but silent!” Aludra has said with a grin, early on in the evening about the tiny alien race. Little was known about the Kaimahi and Aludra had been keen to show off her new knowledge. “So my slow chatterboxes can learn a fair bit!”

  Yet when they spoke of Arucken and his people, her sister's eyes grew cold. “You don’t want to tie yourself to them” she’d said. Her jaw had firmed but she refused to answer any more questions. Kerris remembered how the lights glanced off the bottle in front of them, a near empty one of spirits. The one clear vision in a night of hazy memories.

  Late in a night of heavy drinking, it hadn’t taken many misplaced words for them to descend into a fury. Her sister strode out in anger, leaving Kerris with a bill to settle and plenty of onlookers staring at her. They did not speak for several months.

  No survivors.

  The text of the accident report flashed in front of her eyes. Bile rose in her throat and Kerris turned off the screen. She paced for a few moments, hands clenched at her sides.

  She needed to concentrate. She must work.

  She pushed those memories far to the back of her mind.

  Aludra's shade gained nothing from tormenting those still alive.

  ***

  Kerris opened her eyes to the urgent call of Octavia. Her sirens weren’t loud, but they throbbed with an urgency and speed impossible to ignore. They sounded in both personal chambers; it was almost as if the air shook with her panic.

  Kerris flung on her clothes and ran to the cockpit outside, meeting Arucken by the controls.

  The tapestry of stars dotted the wide viewscreen, curving to both sides around her. She soon identified the source of Octavia’s distress.

  Unmarked on any maps, the asteroid field in front was immense. Even a belt relatively dense was no danger, it was a massive Zen rock garden in space. Hundreds of kilometres spun between each asteroid.

  Yet it was a breeding ground for ambush. The minerals on the asteroids were an excellent boost for any trader. Although quick to mine, the time spent collecting them would leave any ship vulnerable.

  Arucken drew to her side. His uneasy smile challenged her. “Your turn, or mine?”

  Kerris eyed the belt, thinking of the kind of scum that still roamed freely, and in what places they would hide.

  “Dual control.” She insisted, settling herself into the right-hand seat.

  Arucken took his without comment, and whilst she concentrated on flying he kept an eye out for any dangers, ready to flick Octavia’s kinetic shield on and off as needed. Like a firefly in space, her shield was powerful and quick to initiate. The power drain was too high to leave it on, and best kept to quell bigger impacts. The strong outer shell of her was composed of an experimental alloy.

  Scans revealed that most of the asteroids were stripped bare. Kerris frowned. Scavengers had been here before them, although it was not a well-known route.

  An impact flung them both to one side, a small piece of debris hurtling past. The stars spun in the viewscreen as Kerris steadied their flight. Octavia gave a high mechanical whine of distress.

  “Sorry my lady.” Arucken said aloud, moving one hand to rest on the control panel. “The better choice, believe it or not!”

  On the radar Kerris spotted the other, larger pieces, skimming past Octavia’s sleek belly. Ships had fought here, recently.

  She struggled to keep her breathing steady, memories flashing past her eyes too fast to notice. She ran her hand along her head, reaching for a long plait no longer there. She snared fingers in what hair remained, and thought of the knife she’d used to cut, cold in her hands. They had not been shaking then.

  Arucken pulled in the smaller piece of debris to analyse, intent on his screen. His fingers darted across the console as he directed Octavia to store and scan the piece. She suspected he would send the findings to the Concordat, to try to find a match.

  Kerris checked the results as she flew, trying to hold back the growing anger inside her. Arucken was reluctant to share his thoughts, he hunched over the console as if he could trap the information in his fingers.

  “It's the same isn’t it?” she asked. “The same as in Tao Botrus?”

  Arucken nodded. “They caught them Kerris. Just take us out of here!”

  “Not all of them!”

  Kerris rattled off the quick sequence of keys to lock her partner out of the console. Her fingers flashed across at lightning speed, too fast for Arucken to counter. Octavia shuddered. Arucken’s outrage was dim, her mind too numb to hear him.r />
  She refused to listen.

  She ignored Arucken’s shouts.

  She even shut out Octavia, the ship’s dismay at mistreatment emitted in disjointed chimes from the speakers. Kerris, forced them further into the belt, upping the intensity of the scans. She leant forward over the readings, eyes desperately searching for the familiar numbers. Octavia shot forward to the closest asteroid, far closer than she should.

  The shock of acceleration pressed them both back into their chairs, tilting them upwards. The large dark body of the asteroid grew larger in their screens. Octavia shook with her great speed, the engine an angry roar.

  They sped towards the asteroid, and it increased until the entire view was filled with the grey surface.

  Kerris! Arucken said, his inward voice rising to a shout. Calm this down!

  As the stars vanished Kerris scanned the asteroid with a blind intensity, fingers dancing over the console. She ran every search. This was the only hiding place left. They had escaped the Concordat’s reach but she would find them. She had to!

  Arucken kept talking, shouting for her to steer away. She heard him only dimly. It was like it was happening on another planet, to another person.

  She could see him trying to reach against the force that held them tight against their chairs. His arms extended for the controls.

  Octavia steered sharp and tight to the side. She skirted the side of the asteroid rapidly, the pitted surface clear in the large viewscreen. Kerris stared down in shock at controls no longer responding to her. Her ship had locked her out!

  The ship steadied itself, the force ebbing away.

  As he became free to move Arucken turned to her, his body shaking with fear and rage. The colours lay close to his skin, with fast and angry changes. His thick lips tightened together. Without a word, he pushed away from his chair and strode out of the room.

  Kerris stared out at the viewscreen as Octavia slowed and smoothed their flight path. The controls on her console began flashing, as the ship unlocked them back for her.

  Not that close. Kerris thought, although her heart was racing in her chest as if it did not believe her. I would have pulled us out…

  The lights in the cockpit turned off, plunging her into darkness. The dim glow of the controls under her fingers emitted the only light remaining. The stars in front of her took up her entire view again, now free of the asteroid belt. Nothing had been there to find.

  The stars spiralled in front of her, a gentle race of white against a vast expanse of black. She stared outwards, as if for the first time.

  The lights returned, blinding her.

  There was no doubt about it. Octavia was pissed.

  Seedbank

  The remaining time moved at a slow pace. Arucken had sent the results of the debris scan to the Concordat without comment. Concordat members dedicated themselves to keeping the peace between all the known species. If the information was useful to help identify a crime, there would likely be a bonus sent to them both.

  Kerris did not care. She wished only that she’d had her chance to destroy those responsible for her sister's death. Sometimes she lay awake at night and saw it, vivid in her mind. Octavia's weapons were basic, but she imagined the little ship raging as it delivered bolt after bolt of damage at the enemy.

  Octavia made her signs of displeasure clear, providing tepid drinks and cold showers. After a few days the ship grew bored of tormenting her, or maybe even forgot her grievance. Knowing the temperament of their girl, Kerris suspected the former. Normally she’d have laughed about it with her partner, she wasn’t the first of them to annoy their headstrong falcon.

  But when Arucken tried to talk to her she fled the small lounge. He soon gave up trying. Sometimes she caught him looking at her with those large, unblinking black eyes in his pale face. Even the years of close companionship didn’t allow her to read his alien expression.

  It was a relief when they reached the nearest Seedport, a container ship called Shamibala. It orbited a small planet with the same name, a situation Kerris had often thought lacked imagination.

  As Shamibala confirmed receipt of the manifest and transmitted entry codes, Kerris felt Arucken’s excitement. He was the keeper of the plants and seeds Octavia bore, both the ones that kept Octavia aerated and those they only transported. Although he reminded her more of an amphibian, he’d sometimes joked he was more than half plant.

  The methane in Shamibala’s atmosphere gave it an azure hue, a ghostly backdrop as Octavia sped across to dock inside the ship. Arucken guided her with a light touch as Kerris packed quick supplies.

  As she registered their visit, the name directly before theirs made her start. Arucken caught the thought before it was shielded. With arms full of documentation, his mouth pulled into a grimace.

  My old friend….

  The odd mix of reluctance, fear and regret was becoming familiar to her, more than she wanted. Arucken made no comment, flicking through the papers in his hand to place in order.

  Octavia released her ramp and they descended into the dock, passing lines of resting ships. The ones closest bright with health, flanked by empty shells. Abandoned for a refit or reclaimed for parts, a few no more than skeletons. Kerris glanced back at Octavia with regret, but their ship blended into the odd graveyard with ease.

  They walked through silence, no other figures in sight. As Arucken placed their pass against the keycard odd ripples flowed across his skin, like he needed to hide under the shroud, but was unable.

  She did not comment, but she did take his hand. He raised it to his cheek, pressed it once against the pebbled skin before releasing. One day, she would have to ask what that meant.

  The corridors of Shamibala glittered and the air lay heavy with the opulent scents of various spices. Kerris found the ostentatious display off-putting, Shamibala was her least favourite Seedport. She hated seeing some of the funding wasted to impress visitors. The earth lost so much knowledge long before the Purge, what remained had formed the basis for the Seedports. Every known planet had been given a mapped id to describe the group of plants and fauna that it could support. Kerris had been a child in the initial years of salvage. By the time she and Arucken were freed from training the Seedports had been operational for years.

  The walls curved outward, lines of golden light against each side. Stone insets of coloured precious gems surrounded writing in various languages. The human ones caught her eye as she walked past.

  Biodiversity starts in the distant past, and points towards the future said one, the author long since lost.

  If you think in terms of a year, plant a seed; if in terms of ten years, plant trees; if in terms of 100 years, teach the people said another. Knowledge and its preservation were key to the Seedports, yet the opulent visitor entrance was all pretense. The true wealth lay further back, in deep vaults and stasis pods.

  Kerris remembered the deep lines of plants and genetic material locked in stasis pods, shown on their first visit after clearance. A colossal warehouse of new beginnings. The visual map showing known interrelations between fauna and plants covered a full wall of the warehouse, and Arucken had been difficult to coax away.

  Once the Concordat approved the colony, the Seedports gave the tools. The warehouse was heavily guarded, and few were granted access. To Arucken’s deep regret, the introduction visit was all they were ever permitted.

  A short, stocky woman with hair dyed blue and black greeted them not far down the corridor. She reminded Kerris a little of a small cat, an impression only increased by eyes that shone golden in a pale brown face.