A panel in the exoskeleton’s arms controlled the drugs it was able to feed directly into my system. These were drugs designed to help its wounded occupants in battle. Tapping through the menus with my index finger, I selected a combination of opiates for the pain, and added a shot of amphetamines to keep me sharp. I didn’t know much about drugs, and had to guess at the required dosage. But I figured if the morphine put me to sleep, the speed would wake me up again. The one would ameliorate the bad effects of the other, and I’d be pain-free and wide awake.

My reinforced fingers clicked against the glass screen.

I never even felt the mixture go in.

Twenty-Seven: Trouble Dog

TWENTY-SEVEN

TROUBLE DOG

Cruising through the hypervoid, I pinged an enquiry to former pack-mates, requesting a discussion. Within seconds, thanks to the twisted physics of the higher dimensions, I received an acknowledgement of receipt, followed by an encrypted reply from Adalwolf.

The thin-faced, hollow-cheeked avatar he’d chosen to represent him had skin the colour of starlight and eyes that glowered in their sockets like cinders.

“Greetings, sister,” he said, his voice warped and scratchy with the distortions of the medium.

“Where are you?”

“Twenty-eight light years to spinward of your current position, and inbound under full power.” He sent a string of coordinates and a vector. “I expect to reach the Gallery within two days.”

“And Fenrir? I haven’t received acknowledgement from her.”

“She has other duties.”

“She’s running silent?”

“She’s on a mission.” He raised his hands. “That’s all I can tell you.”

“Oh.” I had always liked Fenrir, even though she was quiet and aloof and sometimes cruel. In the old days, I would always have known where she was and what she was doing. Being kept now at arm’s length made me feel excluded, no longer part of the family’s inner circle, no longer privy to their chat and gossip. I had become, through my own actions and choices, an outsider—a distant and disreputable cousin instead of a treasured sibling.

“Is she still under the command of Captain Parris?”

“She is.”

“What do you think of this?” I attached a copy of the signal I had received. “It was addressed to me personally, which means the sender knows I’m on my way to the Gallery. And that implies they are either privy to the internal communications of the Reclamation, or they have been tracking my whereabouts since I left Camrose Station.”

He cast an eye over the data. “Interesting.”

“Yes, but it makes no sense. If the purpose was to warn me away from danger, why not put out a general distress call to advise all ships in the immediate volume? Why contact me alone?”

“You are the nearest vessel.”

“It still seems odd. Unless…”

“Yes?”