Paranoid, me? No, I was certain that someone was lurking in the lengthening afternoon shadows.


    I turned my audio-visual mod on just in case. There, footsteps, just on the edge of hearing, walking when I walked. I turned a corner around some of the new habitation pods, and let my modded eyes flick to the side quicker than non-modded eyes were capable of doing.


    There was someone tailing me, directly on my right, coming down the road.


    I turned on my speed mod but didn''t use it yet, letting it gather kinetic energy first.


    The gondolas were just there, two blocks away. I walked at the upper limit of my natural speed, and listened for the footsteps behind, past the whirr of the gondola chains revolving, and the constant whisper of the Quercus River. The footsteps did not speed up until the person hit the corner and saw how much further I''d gotten this time.


    There, a gondola was coming down the hill. Empty, so no need to wait for someone to get out. But there were people waiting in line for it.


    Unacceptable.


    I turned on my calculation mod and let the geometry of the scene before me play out. If I were to run this fast exactly - if I were to create some sort of crowd-clearing distraction at this exact point and keep running - if I were to jump off that booth there over the fleeing crowd and board the gondola while my tail was stuck behind the stampede -


    Now. I had to go now.


    I turned on my weapon mod to let it spin up. I jogged up to the requisite speed my calculations recommended, which would have looked right on the verge of unnaturally fast to any observers. Behind me, the tail swore under her breath.


    Of course it was her.


    The gondola approached, and I crossed the road to the depot. Just before I entered the yard, I raised my fist to the sky and shot a round into the sky.


    And of course, I''d left my audio-visual mod on.


    Deafened, I kept running, ignoring the pain. I leapt on the roof of the booth as people in the yard screamed - I could only tell by their faces - and fled. As soon as the bulk of people had passed, I was down on the other side, running for the gondola.


    It paused for a second. I ran through the doors and collapsed on the seat. The doors shut. The gondola rose away from Quercus, heading for the ridge, and after that, the spaceport.


    Below, Astera finally pushed through the crowd to come to a standstill. She wore her favourite red coat, pulled tight around her slim waist, and her black hair was loose, bouncing around her face like she was some perfect model of what a police detective would look like, damn her. Our eyes met through the glass of the rising gondola. I waved, then let my head fall back on the seat cushion.


    I knew what she was like. She wouldn''t put a warrant out for me at the spaceport. Astera would want to catch me personally. So I would live to run from her another day.


    ---


    There was no welcome party waiting for me when I arrived on the Thorn, which was disappointing. I''d thought Frod and I were close enough friends by now that I''d see the nosy constable there. But no. It was to a lonely existence I returned on the Thorn. Then again, I needed it. My eardrums were nearly blown after I’d stupidly combined mods again, and my whole body ached from the strain of the chase, and travel fatigue.


    It was my first night alone in my own rooms since I''d moved here. I''d thought I was good at living alone. After all, I''d lived in my own apartment in Ligustrum City for several years before now. But even with nothing left of Xen''s in the back rooms, everything about the place made me think of Xen.


    No, I was not going to be the first to call. Xen was fine. Xen did not need me pestering Xen every single day. Xen was probably quite grateful for the break from me, after all the forced proximity, and potential mistakes made.


    I barely slept a wink that night. This did not bode well for my day of researching the members of the Wilt in the library. Hoping to get up the energy for that task, I took myself to the Vindemia Cafe to partake of their strongest liquid stimulant.


    Wrong idea. I found myself facing a large screen over the counter playing a loop of ''In Memoriam'' stills, all of Xen over the years, posing with happy customers and fellow staff members. Not even the strongest espresso they had was enough to embitter my heart against the pang of missing Xen. No amount of chiding myself, of reminding myself that I''d known Xen for less than a fortnight, and this yearning was ridiculous, would work.


    I glanced out of the cafe, looking for anything other than Xen''s smiling face to distract me. Nadir was loping past the cafe.


    "Hey!" I called out, and all but fell out of my chair as I ran to catch him. Might as well ask him why he was always helping me, while I had the chance.


    Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.


    By the time I''d stumbled past the close-pressed tables and chairs and customers in my way, I''d lost him.


    In my haste to follow him, I''d left a half-finished coffee and my digipad at the counter. I slunk back to collect them, only to find my digipad in the huge fat hand of a man sitting in the seat beside mine. "Hey, that''s -"


    Teg Korr turned in his seat to grin a menacing grin at me.


    "- mine," I finished, and snatched my digipad out of his fingers. He let it go, and turned to drink his own coffee.


    "Sit, Ms. Sophora. You and I are due a little chat." He prodded the seat of my former chair with one finger. His gravelly voice was hard to deny, but I was still recovering from the battering last week, so I was not in the mood.


    "Give me one good reason."


    "Because if you sit and chat with me, I''ll give you a clue towards your personal quest."


    "What personal quest?"


    "Lisia Astrantia Helianthe."


    Well.


    "How did you know I''d be interested in such information?" Who had I told? Frod - no. Xen - yes, but Xen wouldn''t have told anyone. So who had I told?


    "We knew you were coming from the library when we attacked you. So when I got out of the stat sec jail, I made it my business to find out what you''d been asking about. And then I did some asking around about you with some Gerondian friends of mine. Turns out that you''d go to quite the extreme lengths to find out about Helianthe. And so, I come bearing the information you require, in exchange for some I require from you."


    I buttoned my lips and climbed into the seat beside him. I ignored my half-drunk coffee. He could have slipped something into it when I wasn''t looking.


    "Thank you. Now. There''s something you ought to know about our mutual friend Xen."


    I didn''t meet his eyes full-on, but looked at him out of the corner of my eyes. And up. Even sitting, the height difference between us was embarrassing. "Our dead mutual acquaintance. Sure. Shoot."


    "Yes. Dead. Sure, let''s agree on that for now. Pray tell, why did Xen say she ran away from me, when the two of you were planning that little pantomime of yours?"


    I didn''t let my eyes blink or leave his face. "First of all, Xen''s dead. You saw it happen. You essentially caused it to happen. Second, Xen was not she/her. Xen was Xen. I won''t speak to you about anything at all if you''re going to disrespect Xen''s memory like that."


    He leaned back under my furious gaze, his smirk widening. "Fine. Xen, Xen, Xen. Did Xen mention me, little flower?"


    I hissed at him, which only seemed to delight him further. "Xen didn''t go into it. Xen didn''t have to go into it. Xen told me enough that I promised to protect Xen from you. Only, on the day, Xen seemed to... I don''t know. Lose confidence in my ability to do so. That''s why Xen took Xen''s chances and ended up on the floor of the Atrium."


    "So no mention of Beatrice then."


    "Who?"


    The smirk vanished. I might have even caught a glimpse of pain in his small blue eyes. "My daughter. When Xen escaped my employ, sh-... Xen kidnapped my preteen daughter and brought her here."


    I shrunk away from him a touch before I was able to get my reaction under control. "Xen... a kidnapper? I don''t see it."


    "The evidence is but a metre away from you right now." He pointed at the ''In Memoriam'' slideshow. Xen was there with a Terran woman - a woman, not a girl. But when I compared the woman''s face to Korr''s, the resemblance was unmistakable. The boxy over-largeness on his face was strangely charming on hers: her jaw was square like his, but it served to make her lips stand out all the more, large and soft-looking. She smiled at the camera, frozen in that moment in time, with eyes the same colour blue as his. Her hair was nearly the same russet colour as mine currently was. Xen hugged her from behind, laughing in a candid moment at some kind of celebration in the cafe.


    "You said she was a girl."


    "She was kidnapped as a girl. She lived on this station, from the time she was taken until the day she died. And I only found out thereafter. She died half a year ago. In her will, she''d left a letter to me to let me know she''d died. She''d never wanted me to find her alive. Xen had managed to thoroughly blacken my name to her. But she did want me to know she had died. A rare and aggressive cancer. I wish she''d let me see her before the end... but as I said, Xen had tarnished me in my daughter''s eyes for perpetuity." His tone darkened, and his fist around his cup tightened.


    So Xen had been here quite a while. I''d had no idea. Nor had I any idea that Xen had lost someone so dear to her so recently.


    "And you see," he waved at the screen again, "they were inappropriately close. Xen groomed my daughter."


    I swallowed back my revulsion. Had that been what I''d seen on the screen there? The picture flicked by to the next one before I could get a proper read on the vibes. My memory turned the picture round and round, one moment seeing an innocent physical closeness between two good friends, the next moment seeing it as comfortable intimacy between lovers.


    "And now you see why I came all this way to hunt down Xen. Not to bring Xen back into my ownership, despite the fact that I would be legally correct to do so. No, I want to see that synthetic burn for what she did. I bought her to be a nanny to my child, not to steal her away from me." I was about to correct him on pronouns again, when he leaned down and got right in my face. "So if she happens to still be alive, you will let me know. Otherwise, you''re protecting a criminal of the worst kind."


    I glared back at him. This was not enough information. I would need to know more before I betrayed Xen. And even then, I wouldn''t necessarily hand Xen over to his form of justice. More likely I''d subject Xen to Frod''s brand of bureaucratic torture. Still, Teg Korr had set a chill down the back of my spine.


    "Now for the clue you promised me," I said, my voice barely louder than a whisper.


    He sneered and sat back. Once again, his hand raised to point at the screen across from us.


    Xen in the picture had one arm around a woman''s shoulders. Both beamed at the camera, surrounded by friends and customers and pastries and cakes.


    The red-blonde woman looking directly at me through the picture had a face that every Gerondian would recognise.


    Lisia Astrantia Helianthe.


    Right here in this cafe.


    Next to Xen.