Ad Noctum: The Faith (Part 16)

If Volker hadn’t been an undercover kidnapped Tau’ri astrophysicist actively terrified by the threat of discovery and brainwashing, he might have enjoyed his Lucian Alliance glow-up.

Chapter warnings: Stressors of all kinds. Violence. Injuries. Torture. Abduction. Anxiety. Panic. Purposefully insensitive discussion of mental health issues. Loss of agency. Thought control. Boundary problems. Manipulation. Gaslighting. References to suicide. Drug use. Death wishes. Indirect references to sexual assault. Blood. Grief. Self harm.

Text iteration: Witching hour.

Additional notes: I’ll just say “none” here…as though this chapter didn’t kill me and feast on my bones.

The Faith (Part 16)

The morning of Kiva’s arrival, Volker stripped naked. He folded his Earth socks and his Earth underwear and stowed them in Mendelssohn’s shielded compartment along with the shirts he couldn’t wear, orphan cables that powered nothing, a half-gone bottle of Tylenol, and other souvenirs of a useless packing job.

His leather pants chafed, especially in a crouch, but Volker figured it beat worrying he’d be killed for his Fruit of the Loom tags.

He scritched Mendelssohn’s ears, and the cat purred. After checking and rechecking Mendelssohn’s food and water, he coaxed the A-corder into running an ultramarine simulation of flapping birds that caught and held the cat’s attention.

“Okay guys,” Volker said, “see you on the other side.” He fitted the concealed panel into place.

Once out of the cargo bay, the familiar smell of cheap coffee drew him toward the workroom and made the gilded deck and walls of the tel’tak seem like dime-store space kitsch.

“Morning,” Telford said, crisp and friendly as Volker rounded the door. The stitched cut beneath his eye was lined with red.

“Breaking out the coffee,” Volker observed. “Death and torture count as a special occasion?”

Telford poured from a thermos, and the arc of steaming water directed into the third cup jumped as he snorted a laugh. “Why not?”

“Three cups.” Volker claimed a steaming vessel of beaten gold by its edges. “Feels aspirational.”

“Rush shapes up when he has to.” Telford reached into a crate near the wall and tossed Volker a packet of vy’ta. “I’ll get him. Take a seat.”

Volker hesitated. “You want help with that, or?”

“He probably won’t knife me if I tell him about the coffee.” Telford flashed a rueful grin and headed for the door.

“Don’t drag him out by his hair,” Volker advised.

“I’ll do my best.”

Volker trailed Telford, but stopped just outside the workroom. He held his metal coffee cup by its rim to save his fingertips and put his shoulder into tarnished paneling.

Telford stopped in the hall outside the engine room and opened negotiations with a closed door.

It wasn’t long before Rush stepped into the hall, deliberately clipping Telford’s shoulder with his own. There was a sham energy in his bearing that couldn’t conceal how unsteady he was on his feet. He dragged three fingertips along the wall as he walked, like he needed the help to keep himself on course.

“The hell is wrong with you?” Telford demanded.

Rush shook his hair back. “Oh,” he said airily, “I expect I’m dying.”

“You wish,” Telford muttered.

Rush laughed, breathy and winning. He traced a checkmark in midair, the champagne thread at his sleeve catching the light of the corridor sconces. Into Volker’s mind came the image of the mathematician at San Francisco Symphony parties, dressed in a well-cut suit and charming Michael Tilson Thomas with witty digs at an overexposed horn section.

“C’mon,” Volker said as the mathematician approached. “There’s coffee.”

Rush dropped into a chair. In the strong light of the workroom, the man looked like a reanimated corpse. His skin was pale. His lips, eyelids, and nailbeds had turned a bruised bluish purple. It made sense to Volker. Swap red human hydraulic fluid for diluted lavender, and the Electric Age cadaver chic came free. 

“Jesus Christ, Nick.” Telford pressed a hand to Rush’s forehead. “Is your gunshot wound infec—” he pulled back with a hiss as Rush took a swipe at his wrist with a knife pulled from nowhere.

“None of your business,” Rush said.

Volker nudged a steaming cup toward Rush. “You look worse than Tom Hulce at the end of Amadeus, man.”

Rush scoffed. “I’m fine.”

Telford fingered the sliced open cuff of his leather jacket, glared at Rush, and dropped into a seat across from them. “Okay boys,” he began grimly.

Rush rolled his eyes, and with his ghastly appearance it was a little hard to tell whether he was expressing disdain or about to pass out.

Volker leaned in, hand hovering just shy of Rush’s shoulder, but—

“We’re not.” Rush slammed his knife down on the table, trapping it beneath the flat of his hand. “Your boys.” He took a sip of coffee.

Disdain then; not collapse. Yay! Volker sat back in his seat.

“Someone needs to take a fall here.” Telford watched Rush warily. “There’s one option. Me.”

“Oh spare us,” Rush hissed.

“Nick,” Telford said.

“No.” Rush pulled his knife off the table and vanished it into his sleeve. “I’m done. I’ll not be participating any further in whatever grand design y’think you’ve set in motion. My only regret is not killing you when I had the chance.” Rush propped a defeated elbow on the table and drove the heel of his hand into his forehead above his glasses.

“No one understands your importance,” Telford said. “Except me.”

“Yes, well,” Rush muttered. “Congratulations.”

 

“And…what is his importance?” Volker asked.

“We can get into that.” Telford looked at Volker “But this isn’t the time. I’m trying to chart a course through a minefield here, and I could use a little cooperation. If we don’t have a unified story that explains our dead drive, Kiva will play us off one another.”

“That’ll happen regardless.” Rush took a weary sip of coffee.

“Nick,” Telford said, all his sacred zealotry on full display, “I’m your best option. We both know it. It’s why you didn’t take Everett up on his ‘rescue.’ Even if the Air Force could keep you safe from the LA, they’d do it by locking you under Cheyenne Mountain in a windowless room. For your own protection. They’d give you an endless list of problems to tackle until you lost what’s left of your mind.”

That—sounded plausible to Volker.

Extremely plausible, actually. No way would Rush, with his spinning knives and his pocket pyromania and his Death God as Pirate Queen personal style be allowed through a stargate by the United States Air Force.

Rush, one foot in the grave and one foot on the road to Brigadoon, shook his hair out of his eyes, and said. “Fine. What’s your plan.”

Volker let the details of Telford’s combined briefing/pep-talk wash over him. The plan wasn’t airtight. It couldn’t be, because Telford couldn’t control Rush. Couldn’t rely on him in a pinch, couldn’t predict his behavior, couldn’t even treat him as inert—all the same problems Volker himself was facing.

And that was just how it was gonna be.

Volker would do right by his cat and by Rush. In that order. If he could help Telford, he would.

Beyond the window, a point of light appeared over Telford’s shoulder. As Telford stitched a plan from hope and scraps, Volker watched the gleam of Kiva’s gold ha’tak vessel draw brighter.

Closer.

They stood, clustered together in the transport room. Volker was in the center. Rush at his right shoulder. Telford at his left.

“Rush,” Telford said. “Glasses.”

“Fuck you.” Rush nudged his glasses up the bridge of his nose.

Telford sighed.

“Everybody ready?” Volker asked.

No one answered.

“Good enough.” Volker pulled the transport controls out of his pocket and transferred them to his left hand. He made a show of holding up the remote.

Just before he pressed the button, Rush levered the edge of the laptop he carried into Volker’s hand.

Volker closed his grip, hit the button, and the rings shinged into position.

They materialized in the same cargo-transport hold they’d arrived in the first time they’d visited Kiva’s ship. Kiva herself stood to meet them, grave and severe in her A-line leather. Varro and Dannic flanked her, zats out and uncoiled in their hands.

“DON’T!” Telford shouted, hands up, and his vehemence was enough to put a pause in whatever they had planned. “Don’t zat Rush.”

Dannic and Varro looked to Kiva.

Kiva angled her head, took in the mathematician’s sepulchral appearance, then swept her eyes over Volker, her gaze lingering on the laptop in his right hand. “All right.” With cool deliberation, she pulled her zat and shot Telford in the chest.

As Telford collapsed, a fine network of blue sparks grounded itself in the metal floor.

Volker swallowed.

“What’s wrong with you?” Kiva asked Rush, a hint of concern in her voice.

Shaky and pale, Rush scoffed. Shrugged. “I was drowned in a bioweapon. I expect it’s catching up with me.”

Volker’s confusion escaped the tight Cousin-Dale hold he had on himself. He felt it flicker across his face. Saw Kiva clock it.

“What’s wrong with him?” This time, she directed her question at Volker.

Volker shrugged. Settled himself. Buried the questions he had about bioweapons and how the heck anyone could “drown” inside one. “He hasn’t been eating. Or sleeping. Just working.”

Kiva considered this. “How many do you have?” She asked Rush.

“Does it matter what I say?” Rush asked.

Heart in his throat, Volker looked to Kiva.

“No.” Kiva’s smile didn’t reach the iced-over asphalt of her eyes. “Go with Dannic.”

Rush matched her glare with one of his own.

Dannic stepped forward, his expression forbidding, but Kiva stopped him with the back of her hand against his chest.

“Go with Dannic,” Kiva said kindly. “You’ll find that after it’s over, you won’t mind the idea of telling me so much.”

It was happening. Rush was about to get the Faith. Objecting would do nothing but cast doubt on Cousin Dale’s loyalties. Protest filled the back of Volker’s throat. He clamped his jaw shut.

“I don’t want to damage you,” Kiva told Rush, “but I will, if you force my hand.”

A small muscle in Rush’s cheek twitched.

“Cousin Dale,” Kiva said coolly. “Convince him.”

Oh god. This was too much.

“She might let you go,” he said to Rush, because it was the only thing in his mind. “Through the gate. To wherever the nine-chevron address goes.”

“I would,” Kiva said. “You have my word. Go with Dannic, assure us of your loyalty, and you’ll be given a team of our best minds to explore what lies beyond the nine-chevron address. The secrets of the universe. Yours to unlock.”

Rush pulled off his glasses and surveyed the cargo bay like a dead-eyed Prince of the Underdark. “Yes well.” He tucked his glasses into his coat. When he stepped off the ring dais, his shoulders square and his chin tipped up, Volker saw the regal grace of the Goddess of Love in his bearing.

Wherever she was, he was doing her proud.

Kiva and Volker watched them go, Dannic leading the way, Rush following like he was leading from behind. When they’d left the cargo bay, Kiva glanced at Telford, then at Varro. “Pick him up.” As Varro hauled Telford into a fireman’s carry, Kiva said, “Walk with me, cousin.”

Volker fell into step beside her.

The cargo bay was full of vacuum-sealed kassa, canisters that were probably ordnance for the ha’tak’s massive firing batteries, pallets of vy’ta, and carefully crated electronics. The walls were gold, but unadorned and unpolished. As a receiving room, it was spare. Functional. Miles away from the Goa’uld halls he’d seen on Rolan. That was probably why Kiva liked it.

“You’re a man of few words, cousin,” Kiva said.

Was Volker imagining it, or was there a small ironic gloss on “cousin?” His palms felt damp. He resisted the urge to wipe them on his pants. “Is that a problem?”

“Not if you can summon them when they’re needed.” She glanced at the laptop Volker carried. “And gifts never go amiss. Am I correct in assuming you have one?”

“I do.” Volker held up the computer. “Ten candidate planets with sizable naquadria deposits.”

“Not cyphers?” Kiva asked as they passed into a gold hall. Graffiti the color of pitch made broad smears over Goa’uld hieroglyphs. 

“The cyphers,” Volker said, “will have to come from Rush. He solved them on a computer he built from the tel’tak’s drive. These,” he hefted the laptop, “aren’t strong enough to solve cyphers.”

Kiva nodded.

Volker tried not to let his eyes linger on the walls too much, but he could read more Goa’uld now than the first time he’d been here. He caught sight of a cartouche belonging to Apophis.

WITHERED SNAKE, the defacement read, like a helpful annotation. Volker guessed from the boldness of the scrawl and its accompanying illustration of a snake bent in half…he was missing a linguistic dick joke.

“Take Colonel Telford to a holding cell,” Kiva told Varro. “Then meet us in my personal quarters.”

The words snapped Volker’s attention from the walls.

Varro nodded and split off at the next corridor junction. Volker followed Kiva through wider, broader halls, lit with open flame and full of alcoves that held melted and broken statues.

“Eighty percent of the Sixth House Fleet was lost in the attack on Theseus Base,” Kiva said, as though remarking on the weather.

Volker didn’t bother to hide the hitch in his breathing.

Kiva looked over at him. “Did Colonel Telford or Dr. Rush alert the base before the attack?”

“I don’t see how,” Volker said. “Our logs are clear.”

“That’s being verified.” Kiva looked at him, eyes dark and solemn. “But—I believe you.”

Shakily, Volker nodded.

“What I do not believe,” Kiva continued, as they turned down a back hallway, “is that the Tau’ri went from two to nine solved chevrons without help.” She waved her hand over a door control and entered a set of small, spare rooms.

The deadliest lieutenant in all the Sixth House of the Lucian Alliance had set herself up in spartan servant’s quarters.

There was something likable about it. And Volker fed the feeling into the idea of Cousin Dale that was turning clearer and clearer in his mind, like the musical theater characters he’d played. Jeff Douglas. Mark Cohen. Sir Lancelot.

Kiva sat at a simple desk, a slab of metal welded to the tips of two triangles. She indicated Volker should take the seat across from her. “We’ll begin with this.” She stared into his eyes. “Which of them was it, and how was it done.”

“Telford,” Volker said. “I can’t prove it, but he split off from us several times. On Rolan, he was gone for a day and a night. Rush doesn’t seem to have any contacts. Or friends. As far as I can tell.”

Kiva nodded. “How was it done.”

“I don’t know.”

“Speculate, Cousin Dale. You’re sharper than I’d given you credit for. Assume Colonel Telford passed solved cyphers to Earth. How.”

“Rolan was his best opportunity. He brought a contact on board and they extracted information from the drive modifications. I don’t know how that could be done. Or if it could be.” Volker shrugged. “But that was the window.”

Kiva’s next question came slow and pointed. “And what were you doing on Rolan?”

“Rush needed to blow off some steam. I went with him. He—” Volker stopped.

This was trouble. He was in trouble. Ohhhh this was bad. He hadn’t thought things would go this way, hadn’t imagined talking about Rolan. He wasn’t good at making up stories about prostitutes, oh jeez, they hadn’t even visited one, ugh, things had gotten weird, things he couldn’t really describe? He couldn’t bring up Vala, he couldn’t—

Kiva’s eyes glittered. “Go on.”

Save me! he begged the part of him that was Cousin Dale.

“We will find out everything soon enough,” Kiva said. “I suggest honesty.”

Like the stage actor he’d always wanted to be, the character of Cousin Dale burst into his mind on a wave of resentment and adrenaline. “He went to a place called The Little God.”

Kiva flinched as though he’d slapped her.

And Volker found a piece of Cousin Dale that could love her hatred of the Goa’uld.

“He—dresses like them,” Volker said, choking on the words. “He—talked to Ba’al. To others. They treated him like a brother. I didn’t understand. Don’t the Tau’ri hate them as much as we do?”

“No one hates them like we do,” Kiva replied. But there was worry in her eyes now. Like the glint of a buried knife.

“I thought he was some Tau’ri scientist,” Volker said softly. “Why would they recognize him?”

Kiva took a breath. “You did well to tell me this, cousin.” Her composure was back in place. “There is a reason, but we won’t discuss it now.”

Volker nodded.

The door chimed, then opened to reveal Varro. Kiva motioned him forward, and Varro stepped to the desk.

“Leave me the computer,” Kiva said to Volker. “I’ll have my Tau’ri specialists review its contents.”

Volker placed the laptop on the desk in front of her, hoping America’s Most Vanished Cryptographer had enough practical information security skills to hold the line against the best the Lucian Alliance had to offer.

“Varro,” Kiva said. “He needs weapons and clothing befitting his new station. Access codes, security clearance, insignia.” She smiled at Volker, generous and warm. “Cousin Dale,” she said. “Your first assignment will be assisting our scientists with the examination of the altered drive on your tel’tak.”

Volker nodded.

“Are there any requests you would make of me?” Kiva asked.

Varro shifted beside the desk. Maybe in surprise. Maybe in unhappiness; Volker didn’t dare look up to see which.

“Could I request a team member for the drive repair?”

“Who?” Kiva asked.

“Ginn,” Volker said.

Kiva’s eyes narrowed.

Crap.

“Ginn is valuable,” Kiva said. “She is not to be upset. Or hurt. Or frightened.”

Volker nodded. No…problem? Probably shouldn’t say that out loud.

“Ginn has shot men in the head.” Kiva’s tone froze like a river in winter. “With my permission. She knows her worth. If she doesn’t agree to have you, you will not press the issue. Am I understood?”

Um, what?

Varro snort-laughed into his sleeve.

Volker looked up at him, mystified.

“Kiva,” Varro said, fighting down a grin. “He wants her because she’s good with drives.”

Kiva considered Volker. A smile tugged at the corners of her mouth. “Very well. Ginn will lead the drive repair and core replacement. Olan will examine Dr. Rush’s crystal modifications. He is our foremost expert in Ancient technology. ”

“Thank you,” Volker said.

If Volker hadn’t been an undercover kidnapped Tau’ri astrophysicist actively terrified by the threat of discovery and brainwashing, he might have enjoyed his Lucian Alliance glow-up. His jacket passed muster with Kiva’s tailor, but that was the only thing. His pants, boots, and shirt were replaced with higher quality leather that was a near match for his jacket. His lack of underwear was mocked, but he got issued a set of surprisingly comfortable LA briefs.

As he laced up his new boots, Volker offered a mental prayer of abject gratitude to the Goddess of Love. Wherever I end up, he promised her. I’ll build a shrine to you. Flower petals in the morning. Shells at midday. Wine in the evening. May Tapes Guy call you back to Earth, if that’s where you want to be.

He was issued a personal zat with a black leather thigh holster with buckles of tarnished bronze. He was gifted a small energy weapon, which he decided to wear holstered at his hip, under his jacket. He received two slender throwing knives, Kiva’s insignia stamped on their short handles. After consultation with Kiva’s tailor, sheaths were sewn into the outsides of Volker’s sleeves. It was less functional than it was intimidating. The knife Rush had given him got a new ankle sheath to go inside his new boot.

Finally, when Varro was satisfied with Volker’s upgraded look, they headed back to the tel’tak.

All the Lucian Alliance personnel were in the engine room. There were four of them. Immediately, he spotted Ginn, lying on her back, head beneath the drive. A leather-clad man did a slow pan through the room with a hand-held LA camera, documenting the exact configuration of the crystals on the walls. Another man was crouched next to the drive, sketching annotations on Rush’s splice job between the drive and the walls. A man with receding reddish blond hair, built like Volker’s long lost brother, held an A-corder. It glowed a warm tropical blue in his hand.

Oh man.

//Hi?// Volker said to the device, not sure whether he could influence it without touching it. //Don’t spill too many of our secrets, okay?//

“Yeah,” Varro said, noting Volker’s interest in the A-corder. “That device was built by the Ancestors. Olan.” He motioned Volker’s long-lost brother over. “Come meet Dale. Kiva’s cousin. Captain of this ship.”

Olan clipped his A-corder to his hip, nodded, and joined them.

Varro put a hand on his shoulder, to draw the LA scientist closer. “Olan is our expert in Ancestral tech. He even has one of their genes.”

Volker nodded. “That must be rare.”

“It is,” Varro confirmed. “Olan, please explain to Dale what you’re doing to his ship. He’s been our eyes and ears here. It may be that he has information that could help you as you excavate solved cyphers from—” Varro gestured at the walls. “This.”

Olan inclined his head.

Varro headed for the door.

Olan watched him go, then took Volker’s measure. “Captain,” he said. “How much understanding of Ancestral technology do you have?”

“Not much,” Volker said. “Only that they were the true builders of galactic infrastructure. That their technology was abandoned. Most has been stolen and repurposed in a degraded form.”

Olan peered into Volker’s face, like he was looking to crack cyphers there. “Well put. I see you know your history. This, however—” Olan gestured at the walls. “This is something new.” He sighed at the crystal web. “The Tau’ri are always doing such things.”

“It almost sounds like you admire them,” Volker offered.

Olan looked sharply at him. “No. You misunderstand.”

Volker gave him a small and friendly smile.

Olan relaxed, but only a fraction. 

“How can I help?” Volker asked.

It was more than an hour of answering questions about the construction of the crystal array, the behavior of the drive, things Rush had done and said and implied—but finally Volker was able to disentangle himself from Olan, drop into a crouch, duck his head under the drive, and say:

“Hello,” to Ginn of the Sixth House.

She looked over at him, the crimson light of the dead drive transformed her hair into a flaming fan over the floor.  Her dark eyes met his, solemn and wary.

“How’s it looking?” he asked.

“The contaminated liquid naquadah has been drained.” Ginn said. “I’m inspecting the housing while a new supply is siphoned off the ha’tak’s store. It should arrive within the hour.”

Volker nodded. “Can I get you to look at something in the cargo bay with me?”

“What.” Ginn’s voice was forbidding.

Shoot. Yeah. Fair. Made sense. In a panicky blur he tried to think back to their first conversation. The one about science. About how neither of them liked it. “I want you to check for hidden compartments.”

She looked at him grimly.

Volker ducked a little further under the drive. “This is my first ship,” he whispered. “And you’re the best. Because.” He dropped his whisper to nothing but mouthing the words. “You. Like. Science.”

Ginn’s face changed, filling with fear, with anger, with resentment, with a fierce and unhappy hope.

“Please,” Volker said. “Let me show you the cargo bay.”

Under the red light of empty indicators, Ginn nodded.

When Volker offered his hand, she took it, and he helped her to her feet. The mood in the room turned curious. Olan gave Volker an appraising look, the man with the camera snorted, and the man documenting the drive connections muttered something unflattering under his breath.

Volker didn’t care.

Ginn didn’t let go of his hand as they headed for the door, but once they were in the corridor beyond, she pulled free and rested her fingers on the gun at her hip. That was fine. That was great. Whatever she liked. As long as she listened.

She waved for him to precede her into the cargo bay, then followed him in. Only a few steps inside the door.

“Shut it,” Volker indicated the door controls with his eyes.

Warily, one hand on her gun, Ginn did so.

They faced each other in silence, eyes wide. Volker’s heart was hammering so hard he could barely hear himself think. He was panting. He was scaring Ginn. “Are there surveillance devices in here?” he mouthed at her.

She studied him and he could see her growing fear. Her growing hope.

She unclipped a device from her belt, and began walking the room, scanning the walls, the floors, the crates. Volker could see the instant she picked up a signal. She zig-zagged a bit, tracing its source closer and closer until she’d honed in on his pocket.

The one with Varro’s silver sphere. Without touching the device, he opened his pocket to show her what it was.

“Not active,” she said softly. “Just pinging the network.”

Still, Volker didn’t like that she’d picked anything up. He took the jacket off, carried it to the furthest wall, and wedged it behind a crate. He approached Ginn again, who stood in the middle of the sparring space, pale and vigilant.

“I’m Tau’ri,” Volker said.

Ginn reacted like he’d pulled a gun on her. She crouched, drew her weapon blindingly fast, and had backed up three steps before Volker registered his own surprise.

“I am loyal,” Ginn hissed, eyes furious, knuckles white on her gun.

“Well, that sucks,” Volker replied, hands up. “Guess I’m gonna die now.” It took his body a few seconds to start shaking, but it got there. He’d misread her. He’d hinged his whole plan on securing her help, on how much she reminded him of a grad student. He’d always known it was possible she’d gotten the Faith. Or that she truly did love the Lucian Alliance, or—

“I’m loyal to Kiva,” Ginn proclaimed. There were tears gathering in her eyes.

“Yeah,” Volker said, wincing away from her, “I can see that, I’m sorry, I—”

He paused. She hadn’t shot him yet.

“What do you want.”

“Um?” Volker wasn’t sure he should really tell her his plan now, given she was loyal?

“For your silence,” Ginn snarled. A tear ran down her face. “You lured me here.”

Ohhhhhhhhh okay. She thought this was a sting. Ugh. God. The Lucian Alliance really sucked. Volker took a breath. Calmed his nerves.

“Ginn, for real. I’m a Tau’ri astrophysicist. I’ll prove it to you.” He motioned her over to the sealed cargo compartment. “C’mon,” he said, when she didn’t follow. He popped the panel and lifted it away to reveal Mendelssohn sleeping in a nest of dress shirts, his chin resting on the A-corder. “This is my Tau’ri cat, Mendelssohn. That’s his food bowl. And his water. These are my Tau’ri shirts that I wore to my Tau’ri job in Pasadena, California. I was a professor at Caltech. Oh, check it out: here’s some Tau’ri Tylenol.” He shook the bottle at her, and Mendelssohn blinked sleepily and stretched. “Do you know about Tylenol? Great stuff.”

Ginn stared at the contents of the hidden compartment, eyes wide, face pale, crouched behind her gun.

“Don’t shoot my cat,” Volker said. “Look how cute he is.”

Ginn holstered her weapon and crept toward the open wall compartment, eyeing the cat like she’d never seen one before.

“Miu,” Mendelssohn said, petite and sleepy.

“He has claws,” Ginn observed.

“Yeah.” Volker scratched under Mendelssohn’s chin. “He’s a fierce and deadly predator.”

“Oh,” Ginn stopped at a respectful distance.

“Ginn. I’m kidding.” Volker motioned her forward. “You want to pet him?”

“Maybe later.” Ginn fixed Volker with her serious dark eyes. “You really are Tau’ri.” 

“I really am. And if you help me escape,” Volker said, “I’ll take you with me.”

Ginn dropped into a crouch, putting herself at Volker’s eye level. “The LA have infiltrated the Tau’ri to such an extent that I am not certain even they could protect us from the reach of the Sixth House.”

Volker looked down at Mendelssohn, purring at the under-the-collar scratches he was getting. “We’re not going to the Tau’ri.”

“Where, then?”

“To a naquadria-rich planet,” Volker said. “One that Kiva doesn’t know about. From there, we’ll dial the nine-chevron address. You and me and Nick Rush.”

Ginn shook her head. “We can’t take him. He’s gotten the Faith by now.”

“Faith or not,” Volker said, “we have to take him. But I’m hoping the Faith won’t work on him. He swapped all his blood for the LA synthetic substitute. We’re hoping it’ll interfere with the Faith’s mechanism of action. Even if it doesn’t, he’s—got some skills that are hard to explain. Maybe he can hold off the worst of it.”

“If you’re wrong, he’ll do all he can to compromise our run,” Ginn whispered.

“Yeah,” Volker said, “but I don’t think we can dial without him. And the nine-chevron address seems to be the only place we can run where the LA can’t immediately get us.”

Ginn balanced on the balls of her feet and her fingertips, considering. After a moment of contemplation, she looked up. “And my status?”

“What do you mean?” Volker asked.

“If we’re successful,” Ginn clarified. “What is my role then?”

“Um, friend?” Volker tried. “We’re friends? We could be friends? We’re already friends?”

Ginn shot him a pitying look.

“Sorry,” Volker said. “I’m not sure what you mean. You want a title? Mechanic? I don’t have any space money. I was more envisioning just, like, a team-up.”

Ginn compressed her lips, unsatisfied. But, “I think it can be done,” she said.

Volker pumped his fist. “Yes!”

“We have an opportunity,” Ginn continued. “The explosion of the Theseus Planet destroyed most of Kiva’s fleet.”

Volker whistled, low and impressed.

Mendelssohn looked up at him with ears-back annoyance.

“Many experienced personnel died in the battle,” Ginn explained. “Kiva has no other attack ships and most of her short range fighters were destroyed or damaged. The ha’tak hangar bay is nearly empty. Crew have been redeployed. Stretched thin.”

“Fewer people to chase us.” Volker ran a hand over Mendelssohn’s back. “Excellent.”

“Kiva shows you faith and favor because she has no other choice,” Ginn said. “She has only a handful of captains left. Every day she recovers capability. We should leave tonight.”

“There’s a lot of moving pieces to navigate,” Volker warned.

Ginn nodded. “First, the ship. We need the drive. It will be ready in hours. During the drive installation I will purposefully send current into the navigational array. I will then ‘fix’ the navigational array. As I ‘fix’ it, I will remove the tracking device buried there.”

“The one on the bridge,” Volker said.

“Yes. I will scan the rest of your ship to ensure nothing else has been planted.”

“Awesome.”

“In the meantime, you will dine with Kiva and Varro,” Ginn said.

“Ugh, what? No.”

“Yes,” Ginn said. “You are family and a recently promoted captain. Refusal is not permitted. While you are busy, I will steal electronic parts to develop a simple circuit that will keep our implanted transmitters sending their embedded signal.”

“Seems like you’ve had a plan like this ready to go,” Volker said.

“I have dreamed of escape, yes,” Ginn said. “During dinner you will comment, once, about how competent and beautiful you find me.”

Volker coughed. “I—okay.”

“After dinner you will return here. Olan’s team will still be working. You will assist them for a time, then ask after my whereabouts.”

“Okay,” Volker said.

“I’ll return to the ship late in the evening. Near the end of third shift. In front of Olan’s team, I’ll invite you to my quarters. You’ll accept. We’ll speak again. If all the pieces are in place, and circumstances are favorable, we’ll cut out our transmitters and move ahead.”

Volker nodded. “Anything I can do to help?”

“Don’t get killed at dinner,” Ginn advised.

Volker couldn’t get Prokofiev’s Dance of the Knights out of his head as he joined Kiva’s inner circle in a dark and narrow room lit with flaming sconces. The room had been, maybe, a staging area for a nearby banquet hall. All the gold decor had been flayed from the walls, leaving the guts of electronics and the pipes that fed the flames exposed.

Warm bread, charred meat, and blood-colored wine under burning sconces had to be the Sixth House equivalent of breaking out the good silver and the bone china.

Twelve leather-clad people with grim faces passed plates. Conversation was muted. The room was full of bruised fighters that carried themselves like they’d lost a war.

And they had.

Varro, seated next to Volker, knocked three strips of meat off a skewer as it was passed around. Volker copied the motion. Same grip on the skewer. Same hand placement. Same swipe onto his plate.

Kiva sat across from Varro, her dark eyes watchful, scanning the table. Returning to Volker again and again. Like he was the newest tool in her toolbox. Hopefully it was that, rather than an unfurling suspicion.

When the wine and food had made their rounds, Kiva stood.

She held her wine aloft, studying the way the imperfections in the handblown glass caught the blooms of firelight along the wall. “The Tau’ri speak before important meals,” she said.

Volker’s heart leapt into his throat.

A sepulchral silence fell. Only the flutter of the flames in the wall broke the stillness.

“What falls away is lost,” Kiva said.

The room repeated her words. Volker, slow off the mark, rushed the finish.

“Such losses rarely come without betrayal,” Kiva continued. “And we were betrayed. By one of our own.”

Kiva’s sweet-rotten gaze fell on Volker. Passed him by.

“After acts of valor, of service, and of loyalty, David Telford was inducted into our House and treated as one of our own. Armed as one of our own. Trusted with our dearest goal. Our loftiest ambitions. Thanks to the efforts of my cousin,” Kiva nodded graciously at Dale, “there is still strength in our position. We have retained access to the genetically modified Tau’ri scientist unlocking the gate. To our knowledge, he is the only person capable of accessing the power locked behind the ninth chevron.”

Hang on. What the heck? Ugh, what had happened to his poor UC Berkeley colleague? Genetically modified? With what? And how had Anubis been involved? If at all? He should have pressed Telford harder for details. Tried to wrest it from him with science compliments and brutal workouts.

“Even if the team from Theseus successfully transited the gate,” Kiva continued, “they have no personnel with adequate genetics. Furthermore, cousin Dale has provided us with ten candidate worlds with naquadria to rival the stores on Theseus.”

Kiva swept her gaze over the room, as if waiting for challenge.

When none came, she continued. “It was always going to be a small force, that passed through the gate. I had anticipated choosing an elite, limited strike team.” She cast her eyes to the wine in her hands. “Fate has made my choice for me.” She looked them over with a rueful smile. A reasonable smile. A human smile. “Drink,” she said, “for everyone in this room is bound for the edge of the universe.”

A raucous cheer went up from the people in the room. Volker raised his glass and roared with the rest of them, then downed a swallow of wine that tasted of crushed pomegranate and candied saffron.

Kiva took her seat.

As the conversation bloomed around them, full of hard-edged joy and jubilant ambition, Volker and Kiva locked eyes.

“What of Colonel Telford?” Volker couldn’t resist asking.

Kiva gave him a tight smile. “When we’ve learned all we can from him, he’ll suffer a traitor’s death.”

Volker nodded, his heart full of ice. He filled his mouth and chewed, focusing on the note of honey in the bread, the ghost of paprika’s cousin in the charred meat, the subtler notes in the wine, the floral scent of rose, the sour smell of asphodel—anything but what they were doing to Telford in those gilded holding cells.

He cared for Telford.

He did.

Care? asked the Goddess of Love, out of memory, under stars. Care can be set aside.

Volker had never betrayed anyone. Or anything. Not even a principle. Not even a dataset. His overcommitment to the boring, virtuous, replicable road was his greatest strength as a scientist. He didn’t get excited. He didn’t jump ship to chase down random enticing signals in his ever-growing map of the sky.

He didn’t have the time to get his mind around the idea of leaving Colonel David Telford to die at the hands of the Space Pirates before it would need to happen.

And it would happen.

The man who’d taught him everything he knew about how to survive out here—how to throw a punch, how to not break his toes in a low-kick, how to hold a gun, how to stitch a wound, how to fly a ship, how to open a drive casing, how to shield a cat in a bulkhead, how to push past fatigue and run his body on determination instead—

Volker’s eyes watered. He took a long draught of wine to cover it.

Please, he prayed to the Goddess of Love, let him get lucky. If there’s something of him to save, let it happen?

At witching hour, Cousin Dale and Ginn stalked through grand and empty halls. Their implanted transmitters were gone. Volker’s forearm burned where Ginn had sliced his out. She’d transferred it, wet with blood, to a metal dish of salted water electrified by current that simulated living human interstitium. Varro’s silver sphere sat on her bed.

As far as the surveillance machine of the Lucian Alliance was concerned, they were in Ginn’s quarters. Their bodies, walking shadows, passed beneath ash-smeared friezes of Apophis devouring Anubis.

They passed a scattering of guards, all young. No one questioned them. No one dared. After all, Ginn and Cousin Dale were cornerstones in the new architecture of the Sixth House, outfitted like the dark they were bound for.

They rounded the last corner before the ha’tak’s detention block. Ginn crisped up her stride, shoulders back. Volker flanked her, matching her swift steps and resolute bearing.

When they reached the guard, Ginn said, “Olan sent me. He has a question for the scientist.”

The guard, a young man, not much older than Ginn, shifted his weight and checked the long gold halls for company.

Ginn’s fingertips hovered near her weapon. “I’ll call Kiva, if you need authorization.”

This girl was smart as heck. A regular, all-around Science Olympiad: cool head, bold heart, fast on the buzzer.

“No!” The guard side-eyed Volker, then looked again at Ginn. “I—” He couldn’t seem to get the words out.

“Laran.” Ginn’s expression softened. “What is it?”

Volker gave the guard a go-for-it nod.

“I—” Laran swallowed. “I think he could be dead?”

“What?” Ginn breathed.

“He looks dead,” Laran whispered. “Dannic dropped him off. Said he’d be sleeping off the Faith…but I don’t think he’s sleeping.”

Ginn’s face blanched.

“Let’s go see,” Volker said before these two could spiral into a bad idea about a guy who’d been impersonating a corpse for a good handful of days. “Nobody panic.” He looked the guard up and down. “Laran,” he said, “if he’s dead, I’ll tell Kiva. She’s my cousin. I don’t think she’ll execute me. Let us check, okay? Keep an eye on the hall?”

With a sigh of relief he couldn’t wholly hide, Laran nodded.

Ginn clapped Laran on the shoulder, then led the way into the detention block.

Volker had been here before, but he’d been too panicked to form a mental picture of the space. Now, walking in of his own free will, his hand resting on the cool curve of his zat, he understood the detention block was a labyrinth.

Short, straight stretches of red stone marked the path between the cells. The outer cells, near the door, where he’d been caged during his last visit, had a solid wall at their back. The inner cells were small. Stacked deep in the space. Their bars formed a skeletal forest of frozen bamboo that stole and reflected what little night-spectrum light there was. Depth was impossible to gauge.

The air smelled like metal and dust.

Two people were in here. One he wanted to find. One he really didn’t.

Volker’s skin crawled as he imagined David Telford watching them from a cell at the heart of the detention block. The light gleamed in Ginn’s hair. Volker was sure his own curls were just as bright. They’d be easy to pick out. But Telford, clad in black leather and lying on a tarnished floor, would be invisible in this gleaming forest of bars. Until he moved.

Ginn led the way, hugging the exterior wall, where larger cells lined the periphery. They turned a corner, and—

Uh, Laran’s concern made a lot of sense.

Because Rush looked extremely dead.

UC Berkeley’s vanished Mathematics Department Chair, Consort of the Goddess of Love, former host to Anubis, and the galaxy’s greatest cryptographer, rested in serene vampiric repose on a gold bench attached to the far wall. His skin was the pale wax of a spent vigil taper, his eyelids a bruised purple, his nail beds the color of crushed violet, his lips a dusky blue. The dim light turned his ash-colored hair to charcoal and it fanned from his head like a halo of void. The burgundy liner of his open Death God coat draped below the bench like a banner. Copper and champagne thread glimmered at his wrists, which were crossed over his chest like someone had arranged them that way.

“Oh no.” Ginn closed small hands around the gold bars of Rush’s cell.

“Do you guys not have hospitals?” Volker hissed.

“We have healers,” Ginn whispered, “but he is clearly dead.”

“I don’t know about that.” Volker waved his wrist-mounted access chip over the door controls. The bolt in the cell door retracted with a sound like a shot.

Ginn and Volker winced and looked toward the entrance, but Laran didn’t appear.

The muscles between Volker’s shoulder blades bunched as his mind conjured the image of Telford, waking in the dark.

He looked over his shoulder. Nothing moved in the forest of frozen gold.

Ginn swung the door wide, and they entered Rush’s shrine of a cell.

Volker knelt at the mathematician’s side. He closed his hand around the delicate bones of Rush’s wrist, then searched out the hollow between tendons. A pulse beat beneath the cool skin. Regular and strong.

Volker released a shuddery breath. “He’s alive.”

Ginn rested her weight on a bent knee, close enough that Volker felt the warm ghost of her breath.

“Hey.” Volker jostled Rush. “Hey, buddy? Wake up. You gotta tell us if you’ve been brainwashed.”

Ginn murmured a few words and their soft rhythm fell like spoken hymn.

Rush’s eyelids fluttered.

“Yessss,” Volker cheered. “C’mon! You can do this. It’s Study Section Time. Grants are due, man. Time to get scored.”

Rush surfaced slowly, opening dust and amber eyes that shone like the waters of Lethe. He blinked, eyelashes collecting the dark. He seemed to be looking beyond Volker’s shoulder, at the specter of someone else standing at his bedside.

“Hi,” Volker said, kind and warm.

Rush shifted his attention, angled his head, and considered Volker.

“Buddy,” Volker said. “I am so SO sorry. But we need to know if you’re brainwashed. Like, right now. It affects how the next part of the plan goes. Are you gonna report us to Kiva?”

Rush looked 100% dead and 200% disgusted. “No.”

“I realize this is a tough ask,” Volker said, “but—can you tell if the Faith took hold?”

Rush made a pained sound in the back of his throat as he reached into an inner pocket of his jacket. “Y’realize if the answer is yes, I’ll just lie to you, correct?”

“That sounds promising as heck.” Volker helped him pull out his glasses and unfold the earpieces. “The kind of thing that a guy who didn’t get brainwashed would say.”

“Yes well.” Rush slid his glasses into place. “I’ve worked around the worst of it, but unfortunately I believe there’s been some effect on my cognition.”

Dread settled in Volker’s marrow. “Oh god.”

“Under normal circumstances, the Faith leaves no insight or memory of its use,” Ginn offered.

Rush’s eyelids fluttered closed. “I recall receiving it. I also recall a rather prolonged indoctrination that I—” he shook his head weakly. 

“Do you feel a compulsion to betray us to Kiva?” Ginn asked.

“No,” Rush breathed. He opened his eyes, looked at them both, and said, “However, I seem to believe, quite strongly, that I am the rightful head of the Lucian Alliance?”

They stared at him.

“What,” Volker said.

Rush delicately touched his fingertips to his own temple. “It was an intentional choice. It’ll be fuckin’ workable. But I will need the pair of you t’swear immediate loyalty to me.” He squeezed his eyes shut. “I’m founding a house.”

“Ummm,” Volker was not at all sure Ginn would go for this.

But—

Ginn clamped a fist to her chest and said, “I, Ginn of the Sixth House, forswear all prior loyalties and pledge my undying fealty to the Lost House of Nicholas Rush.”

Okay then.

Rush pinned Ginn with the amber glint of his gaze, and said, “Lost House?”

“It’s where we wish to be, isn’t it?” Ginn asked. “Lost?”

“Good enough.” Rush looked expectantly at Volker.

“Yep,” Volker said. “Me too. I also pledge undying fealty to Nick Rush and the Lost House of the Lucian Alliance. Effective immediately.”

“I accept,” Rush rasped, “your sworn oaths of service. Together, we will continue the sacred tradition of deracinating the mindless worship of false gods wherever we find it.”

“Um, okay,” Volker said.

Rush landed a cold hand on Volker’s shoulder. “Where’s Colonel Telford?”

Volker turned and peered into the dim heart of the ha’tak’s detention block.

In the shadows near the floor, before and behind the linear gold bars of cells stacked on cells, Volker saw a lurch of movement. One eye opened in a bruised face. Shoulders shifted. A back arched, made monstrous by a betrayal that Volker had already chosen. 

He turned back to Rush. “Don’t worry about that,” he said, all the strength sapped from his voice. “Now’s the part where we cut a tracker out of your neck.”

Ginn unshouldered her bag of supplies. She unpacked a plate of electrolytes and her battery-powered circuit, then set it up below Rush’s bier. With a vial of ethanol, she doused a small knife.

Like a gentleman offering a lady a cigarette, Rush pulled a silver lighter from his pocket and lit the alcohol on fire.

Ginn flinched and nearly dropped her flaming blade.

Volker touched her arm, steadying her. “Let’s pick up the pace.”

Telford’s eye pressed on his back.

Ginn drenched Rush’s neck with alcohol and he shivered.

Would Telford call for the guards? Beg for rescue?

Ginn searched out the borders of the small embedded tracker in Rush’s neck. When she had it, she pinched it between her index finger and thumb.

It wasn’t too late to save Telford as well. It would be harder to get him past Laran. It would be hard to get him on his feet at all. Telford might betray them. Telford already had betrayed them. Rush wanted him dead with a real and fiery passion. It wasn’t possible to walk out of this detention block with both of them.

Ginn sliced into Rush’s skin and lavender fluid clouded with sediment spilled from the small cut, like the mathematician was leaking formaldehyde.

Volker’s stomach cramped.

Telford had to know that.

Ginn popped the transmitter free, then submerged it in the electrolyte bath.

Rush pressed blue-tipped fingers to the cut in his neck.

Most of his face hidden behind his own shoulder, Volker risked another look back.

Telford leaned into the bars, a hunched mass braced against narrow gold pillars. He didn’t move. Didn’t make a sound. But his eye was open. Fixed on Volker.

“Slowly.” Ginn helped Rush sit.

Volker kept himself between Rush and Telford. He didn’t want them to see each other. It was a deep fairytale instinct. Something bad would happen if they saw one another.

Rush got one foot off the bench and onto the floor. Then the next. He kept his hand clamped to his neck.

Volker’s hands and feet were numb with adrenaline. “Okay!” he said. “Doin’ good.”

Rush looked up at him with a brimstone and balefire glare, then stood. He swayed like a drunken star pirate, but he stayed on his feet.

Volker backed toward the door, hands out, ready to support the mathematician if he fell.

Rush found his balance, asked, “The fuck are you doing?” and shoved past Volker, heading for the open door.

He didn’t see Telford. But Telford saw him.

The dark hulk of Telford’s silhouette straightened. Hands on the bars, he pulled himself into the shape of a man.

Rush’s hands landed on the locking mechanism of the cell door and it burst open under his grip with a shower of sparks. Electrical charge crackled over his forearms and down his back, licking along the metal thread in his coat before grounding itself in the metal floor. Rush pried the lock’s housing from its interior and tossed it on the red stone of the hall. Three crystals shone inside the lock—ice blue, bone white, virescent green. Hands wet with his own replacement blood, breathing like he was in the middle of a panic attack, Rush pried them free.

Ginn gaped at the head of the Lost House.

Volker looked at Telford.

Telford looked back, one eye shut and dripping blood.

You did this, Volker told him silently.

Rush staggered to the next door, neck leaking clear fluid, eyes wet. Blue corpse-nails cracked the mechanism and, again, it broke with a shower of golden sparks. He threw the casing aside and rescued three more crystals—poisoned yellow, smoked dust, burnt sage.

I know, Telford answered.

Rush made for the next door, but before he could attack it, Volker tugged at his elbow. “Little quieter, buddy,” he suggested. “There’s a guard in the hall.”

Rush shuddered. He bent over, hands braced on his knees. “I can’t,” he gasped, “get them all.”

“No.” Volker bent to look Rush in the eye. “But you can get those three,” he pointed at the next door. “Little quieter, right?”

Ginn stepped to the nearest lock. She pulled a knife from its sheath, inserted the blade, and pried the lock open. Silently, she laid it on the floor.

Rush straightened, stumbled to the open panel, and with a subtler spark-shower, pulled three more crystals—pomegranate, saffron, sapphire.

As they approached the hall, Volker looked back.

Telford was on his feet, a dark silhouette in a forest of gold. Weakly, he lifted a hand. There was something wrong with his arm. It was impossible to tell if the gesture was meant as blessing or curse.

Either way, it was time to go.