Niko knew immediately what had happened.

“That son of a three-sided crystal gave us the wrong password!” she said. “Look, Ship, we do want to get you back to your owner. But we need to get to a place where we can track him down and arrange the exchange. He owes me a great deal of money.”

“Is the transaction witnessed?” the ship asked.

“Witnessed back on TwiceFar,” she said.

There was a pause. “TwiceFar systems are currently offline,” the ship finally said. Niko could swear she heard suspicion in its voice.

“That is because the whole place was blown up by an Arranti, for who knows what reason!”

“That seems most unlikely,” the ship said.

“You saw the Arranti yourself!”

“I witnessed an Arranti in the vicinity, but was unable to discern what was causing damage to the station itself.”

“That’s what Arranti do!”

Sane species avoided the Arranti, one of the oldest, most powerful races, who were obsessed with the game that their species played. They would not divulge the rules to outsiders—although it was apparently specified that you had to be an Arranti to play—and over the centuries, while many scholars had devoted themselves to trying to figure it out, only guesswork and wild theories served so far. The game—and its participants—were wholly unpredictable, and while the station had been destroyed as a move, apparently, it could just as easily have been transformed, or replaced, or augmented. Sometimes new game structures arose, and they disappeared just as quickly.

At the end of the Arranti year, Niko knew, the Arranti would gather and discuss their scores. How the score affected them was also unknown, but many believed it to be tied into whatever system of leadership they used. Among all the races, the Arranti were perhaps the most secretive, although they claimed it was simply that lesser minds would be unable to understand. They also claimed to exist in multiple dimensions that other beings could not discern, but this claim was generally regarded as hooey.

Luckily for all parties concerned, most Arranti made only one or two moves per cycle, and those moves might just as well be something harmless, like moving a pebble from one side of a barren wasteland to another or altering the words of a popular song.

“The password ‘I believe in miracles’ designates passengers who should be taken to a prison planet and turned over to the proper authorities for attempting to steal this vessel.”

“We didn’t attempt to steal you! We were with Arpat. Maybe he gave us the wrong password because he was dying at the time.”

“That password is designed in case Mr. Takraven is being tortured,” the ship said ominously.

Niko thought back and regretted her phrasing to Takraven. She should have known better, but she hadn’t dealt with many of those rich enough to be called “short-lived,” hopping from clone body to clone body.

“Bastard,” she muttered.