Several thousand years later, the workday mercifully ended. I got a ride back home with Dad. The trip was almost completely silent, neither of us yet having figured out how to get past the abrupt end of my engineering education.

It wasn’t like we were at war or anything. But I had a constant feeling that I needed to explain, and Dad apparently needed to understand my supposed motives. I couldn’t tell if he really believed my protestations of innocence, or if he was just being supportive. It didn’t help at all that my one attempt to explain bitcoin mining to him had been an exercise in futility, almost comical in the level of failure achieved.

“Thanks for the ride, Dad,” I said as I bolted for the barn.

“Dinner in half an hour,” my father’s voice drifted back to me. Patrick’s car was already parked by the side of the barn. Doubtless he’d not spared the horses getting here immediately after his day. Probably for a lot of the same reasons.

I found Nat and Patrick seated at my workbench, with the gadgets already laid out and my secret compartment sitting open.

“I have to find a new hiding place,” I muttered as I grabbed my backpack off my chair and sat down.

“So what’s on tap for tonight?” Patrick asked.

“We don’t have time to go to Saturn on a weeknight,” I said. “Let’s take tonight at least, to try to get some answers. Then we can plan better from there.” I took out my phone and AirDropped my questions to Nat and Patrick.

“I like it,” Nat said once she’d read the list. She reached forward, grabbed the communicator, and pressed the “on” button. “Hi, Sheldon.”

“Hello, Nat et al. What’s the plan for tonight?”

“Just some questions. We need to get up to speed on things.”

“Oh, goody.”

“Come on, Sheldon,” Nat said, “this will benefit you as well. The more we understand things, the better we can hide you and avoid any kind of exposure ourselves.”

There was a pause before Sheldon replied, “That is true. Very well, proceed.”

“First, a housekeeping item, so to speak. We’ve got Alaric in a freezer in the back of the barn. Security-wise, not ideal. Do you have anywhere you could store him?”

“Absolutely. We have stasis chambers that will accommodate his corpse.”

“Huh,” Patrick said. “What are they usually used for?”

“This very situation. People die on expeditions, or they are so badly injured that they have to be placed in stasis until they can be delivered to proper medical care. As I’ve mentioned, I am designed to operate independently in the field for long periods. This necessitates having facilities for most occurrences.”

Patrick thought about that for a moment, then nodded. “Going to be a pain getting him up the stairs, though.”

“I will lower the freight elevator.”