Maybe this is the end, he thought. Everything I’ve done, all those years of planning…it could be over, right here, today.

The idea had a perverse appeal. Fascinated, he watched Mari San Tekka’s trembling, tiny body, wondering if his life was about to embark on…well, an entirely new path.

His finger hovered over the alarm for Uttersond, and he didn’t know what the idiot doctor could do, but perhaps something, and was pressing it even as Mari San Tekka coughed, a sharp barking sound, and her seizures ended.

Her eyes opened, and she looked around her in wonderment. They locked on Marchion, and she smiled, broad and kind and open as a child.

“Why, Marchion, hello,” she said. “Did I lose myself again? I’m sorry. You know how I get when I take us traveling. There’s just so much to see, you know.”

Her index finger twitched on the control panel beneath her hand, and Marchion felt the Gaze drop from hyperspace.

“It’s all right, Mari, everything’s just fine.”

Mari swiveled the medical pod, taking it vertical, so instead of looking up at him she could stare him right in the eye. Her mind was clouded by age, but her gaze was not—her eyes were clear and focused, and she never seemed perturbed in the least by his own black orbs.

“Well, that was a good one, in any case. Found a new path between Pasaana and Urber. Should reduce travel time by a third, maybe more. It’ll make you a bundle!”

Mari San Tekka had been a hyperspace prospector since she was six years old. Something had happened to her as she traveled out in the interstellar wilderness with her family, and it had changed her. Changed her mind. Opened her up so she could see things no one else could—the Paths. For some years, she had used that ability on behalf of her people, and brought them wealth and renown…but that fame brought with it a price.

Marchion Ro’s own family had taken Mari San Tekka…stolen her, no reason to call it anything other than what it was. They had used her skill to find things they believed they needed back then, and then they had just…kept her. Told her whatever stories were required to keep her happy and working. Handed her down from generation to generation, until eventually she took up residence on the Gaze Electric.