Elena listened to the muffled sounds of thumping, cutting, welding, and hammering until the sedatives pulled her down into a darkness she fully expected to be eternal.

Chapter Eight

“That’s the last thing I remember before you woke me.” Elena hugged herself, and looked so small and vulnerable that Callie just wanted to wrap her up in a blanket and hold her and tell her everything would be OK, even if that was a lie. Maybe especially if that was a lie.

“It could still be Liars,” Callie said, half to herself.

Elena scowled. “The thing that ate Ibn and Hans was the size of a bus. It doesn’t sound much like the aliens you described.”

“That kind of thing would be outside their normal range. And the technology you describe is way beyond anything we’ve seen before, even from Liars. Artificial gravity?” Callie’s initial impulse was skeptical disbelief, but the story Elena told did fit with the available facts, outlandish as it was at its heart. “So. You remember what happened. What would you like to do with this information?”

“What do you mean?”

Callie shrugged. “You may have made contact with a new race of aliens, who are either hostile or inscrutable. What do you want to do next?”

“I suppose I should tell the authorities?”

Callie nodded. “Right. But which authorities?”

“I’m not sure. You’re like police, aren’t you? Shouldn’t you know?”

“I am a sworn officer of the Trans-Neptunian Authority security forces, on a part-time freelance basis, which is a little different from being police as you understand it. You’re from the One World Emergency Government era, right?”

Elena nodded. “The goldilocks ships were one of the first major OWEG projects, right after the desalinization initiative.”

“Right. Earth is still ruled by a version of that organization, the OWG, but its influence doesn’t extend beyond the Karman Line. The Luna colony has been independent for centuries, though they’re still close allies of Earth, and Mars is its whole thing. Mercury is an energy farm, barely populated. Together, they form a loose coalition called the Inner Planets Governing Council. Venus, like I said, is reclusive Liar territory. The asteroid belt is a disputed zone between Mars and the Jovian Imperative, and a couple of Jupiter’s moons keep stubbornly insisting they’re independent, despite much evidence to the contrary. The Jovian Imperative is arguably as powerful as the inner planets, since they control the only bridgehead in this solar system, but they all pretty much get along, because there’s more money to be made that way.”

“So way out here, the Trans-Neptunian Authority is in charge?”