When I came home, my heart was in my throat. Xen wouldn''t have left, right? If Xen''s wristband pinged off of the office door even once, Frod would know something was up.


    But there Xen was, gently sponging the dust and grime off the root-stem weaving in my office.


    I slammed the button to shut the door and hurried Xen away from view. "Xen, we have to be careful."


    "I am, I just -"


    "Your wristband. Where is it?"


    "I shut it away in one of my old storage boxes as soon as I got here yesterday. Don''t you remember, I wasn''t wearing it when you fixed my arms?"


    I nodded, distracted as I tried to think if there was anything I hadn''t considered - and then distracted again at the memory of fixing Xen''s arms and what had followed. "Right. No. Good. That''s what we want. The forensics team made a note that they never found your wristband - and Frod''s been in the database, he knows that we shared access codes with each other."


    Xen''s sweetly curious face finally darkened with comprehension. "So they''re suspicious of you. Which is why you were so rudely summoned this morning. Marys, I''m so sorry -"


    "I don''t care about me, Xen. Stat sec were never going to be my friends. No, there''s more I have to tell you. It''s Korr. His gut tells him something was weird about the... event. Apparently he''s staying here to investigate further. And it seems like he''s got free reign, because stat sec don''t feel they have the evidence to convict him for your murder. Instead, what they do have is video evidence of you coming in here during the chase, and me and the decoy both coming out into the corridor."


    Xen’s eyes flew wide open. "What about Nadir? How you said he seemed to be helping us?"


    "The camera didn''t catch him, and I left him out of the telling. If the guy really is trying to help us, I don''t want to dob him in."


    Xen pursed Xen''s lips, then rested Xen''s forehead on the weaving panel. "OK, so... they''re going to be keeping an eye on you... and I can''t go anywhere until Korr is off the station and believes I''m dead... damn it. I''m so sorry, Marys."


    "Sorry? What are you going on about? There''s nothing to apologise for."


    "I''m going to have to inconvenience you further by staying in your back rooms until I''m allowed to leave."


    "Inconve-... Xen, you are not an inconvenience!" I gave Xen a light punch on the upper arm, which drew a smile out of Xen. "I said you could stay here, and I mean it. I don''t want to hear any more of this ''inconvenience'' talk from now on, you hear?"


    "Thanks, Marys. You don''t know how grateful I am."


    "I mean, I have some idea."


    I had to be blushing. Xen, however, didn''t. I suppose that''s because blushing isn''t part of the mods Xen had installed, although I didn''t know that for sure, and it was probably weird to ask, so I didn''t. With eyes averted though, Xen did seem to be coy about the topic I was alluding to.


    I felt I was on shaky ground all of a sudden. It was hard to read whether Xen was feeling shy or perhaps even embarrassed or ashamed of what we''d done last night.


    And now that I thought about it, maybe I was the one who should be ashamed. After all, Xen was at my mercy. No access to the rest of the station, staying here on my pleasure, on pain of death or capture... Xen was my client, damn it, and in the heat of the moment last night, I''d forgotten that. It was quite possible that what I''d done counted as taking advantage.


    Dang it. I had to get Xen out of here as soon as possible. Only once Xen was truly free and independent could I know for sure what Xen''s true feelings about me were. Not here, in what was sure to become a state of cabin fever very shortly.


    "I was thinking, I''d better go out today and do some more investigating regarding my personal case. Not just because I really ought to for its own sake, but because if I''m seen around the station acting normal, it hopefully won''t draw too much attention here. If anyone at all comes, especially if it''s the law again, that hiding place you used this morning was very effective. But just watch out for the glow of your faceplate."


    Xen nodded very seriously, holding both hands in front of Xen''s face and looking mortified. "Of course. Right."


    "Can I get you anything while I''m gone?"


    "I need for nothing. Although, is there a sort of polish or finish I should be cleaning this panel with?" Xen pointed at the root-stem panel, and finally, in its clean-ish slate, I twigged.


    "Ha. Araucaria."


    "Pardon?"


    "It''s a panel from Araucaria. Um, right, that means nothing to you. On Gerondia, each bed has its own patterns, unique to the people who come from there."


    "Bed?"


    "Like flowerbed. We all come from a Seed, which is the starship in which our ancestors landed on Gerondia. Then Bed is where our ancestors settled, grew and thrived. Root is grandmother, mother Stem, and then petal for what Terrans would call girls, and sepal for boys." I ran my fingers over the familiar zig-zag pattern. The flaxen strands were dyed purple and pink. "I recognise Araucaria in particular, because of two reasons. First, even though my bed''s Ligustrum, my grandmother was gifted an Araucaria panel by someone long ago. She kept it in her bedroom, in pristine condition. Oh, and she just washed it with water, as you are doing. No need for a special polish."


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    "Oh, good to know. And what was the second reason?"


    "Hmm?"


    "The second reason you recognise panels from Araucaria?"


    "Ah. Right." My smile faded as my jaw set. "My fixation. Lisia Astrantia Helianthe''s Bed is Araucaria. So I have learnt a lot about the place in my efforts to track her down. Speaking of which." I grinned, and moved to the door. "Take care now."


    ---


    A new lead had occurred to me since I''d last had a chance to look for Lisia.


    Suppose she''d stayed on the Thorn for a bit. The station has no extradition treaties, so stat sec wouldn''t be able to do anything about her unless she broke the law. And what she was known to almost certainly have in her possession was a wealth of galactic credit, syphoned off into personal accounts spread across the galaxy before she''d been run off my planet.


    So what''s a girl to do, fresh off of tyrannising her planet and fleeing all responsibility?


    Any number of things, on a place like the Thorn. Hit the casinos and fritter it all away? Start a business empire? Find her next mode of travel and keep moving? Hire a bunch of thugs for protection?


    One thing was certain to me. If I could find anyone who was around here twenty-five years ago, I stood a decent chance to learn what had happened next in the sordid history of Lisia Astrantia Helianthe. Someone throwing around the amount of cash she had going was sure to make quite the impression, even here in this hub of trade. Especially here, perhaps.


    For the moment, one main destination occurred to me: the station''s library. Now, every planet in the galaxy has different standards of what construes a library. Is it simply a place to exchange a few books, or is it a one-stop shop for a whole host of knowledge and services? I was hoping the Thorn''s library would land a little more on the heavyweight side of things.


    I was not disappointed. In one of the floors under the main Atrium, the library squatted, taking up an entire floor to itself. The main chamber in the centre, around the central pillar with the elevators, was a huge cavern of a place with shelf after shelf lining the walls, and whole rows of shelves like spokes around the hub of a wheel. I could see, beyond those, there were certain special facilities on mezzanine floors. I checked with the directory, then headed in the direction of the mezzanine devoted to historical research about the station itself.


    A librarian was an aged member of a four-armed species I''d not encountered before. Their smile was kindly, and I returned it, but tried to give off the vibe of knowing what I was doing as I went amongst the filing cabinets to investigate for myself. I did note, with a small bit of personal interest, that the librarian''s desk was full of files to do with singularities and other celestial objects around the Thorn itself. Presumably, they''d gotten into the hype around the little cotton ball cannibal devouring gases and stars not too far from our location.


    They gave me about ten minutes of flailing around on my own before they came to find me. I''d even turned on my audio-visual mod to help me search faster, but I''d kept the settings low this time, so the constant hushed voices and riffling of paper and beep of consoles didn''t drive me crazy.


    I heard the librarian coming before I saw them. They stopped a polite distance from me.


    "Hello. Anything I can help with?"


    I gave up trying to tough out the search by myself. "Uh, yeah. I was wondering about any significant events about twenty-five years ago, here on the Thorn."


    "Looking for anything in particular?"


    "I''m not sure..."


    "Only, I was here around that time."


    "Oh!" I beamed what I hoped was a winning smile, and asked, "Well, I''ll be a little more specific then, because maybe your memory could help me. Was there a Gerondian woman, like myself, who came to the station and perhaps made a bit of a splash? She could have gone by the name Viola Meria Disanthus, or Lisia Astrantia Helianthe... or perhaps neither of those, she may have adopted a new alias by then. Oh, and her hair would have been bright orange at the time."


    They smiled indulgently. "Neither name rings a bell, but there was a Gerondian woman, yes, with orange hair, as you say. As I recall, she opened a Gerondian goods import business on the third floor of the Atrium. Not particularly good real estate, and the shop didn''t last too long, if memory serves. After that though, I don''t remember what happened to her. Hmm... come, come. Over here, I think we''ll find..." They opened a cabinet and rustled through old memory chips. "Ah, maybe this one..."


    The librarian picked one chip out of many others and guided me over to a console at the end of the row of cabinets. They plugged it in and the screen booted up to a directory. "Let''s see... what was the shop called? First Bloom? Fresh... Fruit.... ah, there it is. First Fruit of the Season - a real mouthful, that one. And let''s see... Proprietor, one M. A. Excelsa."


    The name jarred me. It wasn''t an uncommon one in Ligustrum, but it was the closeness to home which surprised me. My great-grandmother was named Excelsa. The idea that Lisia had potentially used it as an alias alarmed me. Even if it cost us nothing, how dare she borrow it from my family.


    "Thanks. Is that all, or can we find out more about M. A. Excelsa?"


    The librarian held up a finger, while their other three hands tapped away at the console, searching through indices. Then they sighed. "I''m afraid this is the extent of my records. Whoever this M. A. Excelsa was, they were either very unremarkable, or kept a low profile on purpose. I know no more, sorry. Ah, but you know who might? Constable Frod."


    "Frod? He was here twenty-five years ago?"


    "Oh yes, dear. And if you''re in his good books, perhaps he might let you look up more private information on M. A. Excelsa''s business information form."


    Of course! He''d had me fill out an extensive form when I''d got here. Lisia - Excelsa, whoever - would have had to do the same.


    Pity I was not on his good side...


    "Thank you so much. You have no idea what a huge help this has been." Seriously, they had no idea. The things I''d gone through on Gerondia to hunt down Lisia... the bridges I''d burned... it wasn''t worth dwelling on, not with everything feeling fresh and new and complicated in its own way up here in the Thorn. To have a simple interaction with a knowledgeable person, free of agendas and manipulations; it was clarifying, like the first spring rain. "Have a great day."


    "You too, dear."


    In all my enthusiasm to tell Xen the sort-of-good news - that Frod might have the information I needed, if only I had a way of getting to it - and to ask Xen''s opinion of how to proceed, I clean forgot I had my mods on low. The Atrium seemed a little noisier than usual, but it wasn''t enough to remind me to switch my mod off. I hurried for the corridor to get away from the wall of sound.


    I was so distracted by it that I neither saw nor heard a warning of the blow coming for the back of my head.