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guarded faces, the invisible heaviness on the shoulders.
    You say nothing to the woman across from you.
    “You are here without permission. Do you know you I could have you killed for that?”
    “You could try that,” you say. “The cost would be high.”
    “Oh, I imagine.” She leans back, and flails an arm in what must be some far-off alien physical expression badly translated. There is a pit, a cavern, somewhere deep in the bowels of Hope’s End. Somewhere with three quarter’s gravity, and a dirt pit, and a massive recreation pool. And slopping around is a giant wormy trilobite of an alien. “I know a lot about you. More than you know about yourself.”
    Indeed.
    The thing you need is that cavern’s location.
    Until you get that, everything is a dance. A game. A series of feints and jabs. Your life is the price of a single misstep.
    But what do you have to lose? You don’t know. Because you can’t remember. It was taken from you. The Satrap owns everything you would lose by dying. You’re already dead, you think.
    “So why haven’t you killed me?” you ask the Satrap.
    “The Xaymaca Pride, ” it says. “They’re sneaking people around my habitat. As if I wouldn’t notice. And they’re hoping to leave . . . for a new world.”
    “You believe deBrun’s propaganda?” you ask. Because even you don’t half believe it. The man is slightly messianic. He’s probably going to lead them all to their deaths, so far from Earth. Alone among uncaring, hard aliens the likes of which haven’t even bothered to make it to Earth.
    The Satrapy is vast. Hundreds of wormhole junctions between each habitable world, and dozens and dozens of those linked up. And the Satraps hold the navigation routes to themselves. The few individual ships out there blunder around and retrace their steps and are lucky they’re not shot down by the Satrapy’s gun banks in the process.
    “DeBrun destroyed his own ship upon return from the Fringes,” the woman says. “He has memorized the location in his head.”
    “Ah. So you believe it is true.” A ship. There were corporations on Earth that couldn’t afford an interstellar ship. Not a small act, destroying one.
    “Many people raised funds to create this . . . Black Starliner Corporation’s fleet,” the Satrap’s thrall says. “I believe the world he found is real. Unspoiled and real. And I want it for myself.” That last bit is lashed out. There is hunger in that statement, and a hint of frustration.
    This Satrap is trapped up here, while its siblings cavort on the surface of Nova Terra. They have thousands of humans and aliens in thrall at their disposal, chipped with neurotech that let them create an army of servants they can remote control around with mere thought.
    “I am stuck in this boring, metal cage. But I have great plans. Would you like to know how you got that scar above your left inner thigh? The jagged one, that is faded because you’ve had it since you were a teenager?”
    You stop breathing for a second. Unconsciously you run a hand down and trace the zig-zag pattern with your thumb.
    “You were climbing a fence. Barbed wire curled around the top, and you were trying to get over it into a field. You slipped. You were so scared, for a split second, as it ripped open your leg. The blood was so bright in the sun, and the ground tumbled up toward you as fell, in shock.”
    When you break the stare, you’ve lost a little battle of the wills. “So you do have them.”
    “I love collecting the strangest things,” the Satrap said through the woman. Now that you are paying attention, you see that her hair is unwashed, and that there are sores above her clavicle. “I have two thousand humans, in thrall to me. Many other species as well. And I’ve used these eyes to pry, sneak, and attempt my way on board. I want John deBrun. I’m tired of watching these free humans skulk about.”
    “So go pick him up,” you say.
    “Oh, yes. I want to sink my